


Spawn

by EeveeNicks



Series: Human [2]
Category: Aliens (1986), Metroid Series
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Female Character, Bounty Hunters, Dogs, F/F, Family, Family Drama, Lesbians in Space, Male-Female Friendship, Mercenaries, Mother-Son Relationship, No Lesbians Die, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-07-29 01:59:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 55,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7665967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EeveeNicks/pseuds/EeveeNicks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Continuing where "Human" left off, Samus is staying at Adam's home on Earth while she recovers from her battle against the Space Dragons. It is there that she has the chance to meet someone particularly important. (Happens at the same time as the events at the beginning of Aliens, although not a true cross-over fic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Someone Significant

Chapter 1: Someone Significant

There had not been anything particularly interesting about that afternoon. It was one of those rare Saturdays when neither Jack nor his son had anywhere pressing they needed to be. The air was still a bit chilly for so late in the spring, but the sun was bright in the cloudless sky overhead, and some of the flowers in the beds outside of his modest little house had begun to bloom. Seizing one of the few free moments in the life of a single father, Jack decided the best use of his time was to run out for groceries. As he returned home and parked his hovercar in his driveway, his teenage son, Hector, came out to greet him.

A tall man in his late thirties, Jack Fields had warm green eyes and light brown hair flecked with grey. He always carried himself with a very straight posture reflecting his years of service in the Federation Army. Nowadays he was not on active duty anymore, but his work at one of the bases in the area kept him busy. Every moment he was not working, he tried to spend with his son. Hector was nearly as tall as his father, despite only being fifteen years old. He had his father's green eyes as well, but his sandy blonde hair was a few shades lighter.

Together, the two of them unloaded the bags of groceries from the car and brought them into the house. Jack was just about to unload the last of the bags when he noticed Hector staring very intently at something in the distance. Curious, he looked up to see a tall blonde woman walking across his front lawn, her eyes set like a hawk on his son. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans, combat boots, and a leather jacket, but he didn't recognize her from around the neighborhood. At first, he felt confused and wondered if this woman was someone from Hector's school, but as he realized she looked familiar, recognition gripped him. He knew this woman. He had not seen her in fifteen years, and she looked vastly different from the girl he had known, but he knew this woman.

"Samus?" Jack abandoned the grocery bags that were still in his car as he stared in disbelief at the woman walking toward him. He took a few steps toward her, his son watching from beside him. "Samus? Is that actually you?"

The woman called Samus stopped walking when she was about five feet away from Jack and finally took her eyes off of his son and looked at him. She was an extremely tall woman with blonde hair and cold blue eyes. He had not seen her since she was about eighteen years old, and she had changed a lot over the years. Her hair had gotten very long, and her entire demeanor was harder. There was an emptiness in her eyes that had not been there once, and by the way she carried herself, he knew she was concealing firearms. Then again, he knew she always carried concealed weapons.

"Hello Jack," she said very calmly in her deep voice, her face expressionless. "Hello, Hector." She nodded to his son, who had come to stand beside him at this point. "I think we have some catching up to do."

Hector looked at the strange woman. He could not recall ever meeting her before, but his father's reaction and the way she had called him by name let him know that she was someone significant. Whatever she was here for, she had come with a purpose. Though he could not put his finger on why, she made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He wasn't sure how he knew it, but he could tell this woman was dangerous.

"Hello," he replied quietly, watching his father glance between him and the woman called Samus. He was not sure what else to say.

The woman kept staring at him intensely, and he was suddenly very self-conscious. He didn't know what she was looking for, but instead of looking away, he made eye contact and studied her back. He wondered if she had been in the Army like his father was; she certainly carried herself very straight and properly. However, if she had been Army, his father would not have been so shocked to see her. He was not sure, but he thought he could see the outlines of dark scarring near her right eye, concealed by her make-up.

"Hector," Jack said after a minute, turning to the boy, "why don't you grab the rest of the groceries and head into the house? We'll meet you in there."

"Um, sure." Hector reluctantly looked away from the woman and went back to grab the last of the bags from their car. He glanced back one last time before heading into the house and shutting the door.

Jack turned back to Samus as soon as he was sure Hector was out of earshot. "You finally decided to come here?"

Samus nodded, her face still void of expression, but her mind obviously processing what she had just seen. "I figured I've waited long enough."

"You could have called, Sam." Jack tried to hide his frustration, but his tone betrayed him. While it was true that he had been asking her to come meet the boy for a long time, he would have preferred a chance to prepare himself. As it was, he was shocked to see the difference in her now from the girl he had once known during their time together in the Army.

She shook her head, her sharp eyes never leaving Jack's face. "If I had called, I never would have come. I didn't want you to be anticipating me."

Jack sighed. One thing about Samus had not changed; she never made things easy. "I'm glad you finally decided to come meet him. Really, I am. But you should know that this is going to be a huge shock to him."

"I'm aware," Samus said flatly, looking over his shoulder to his front door. "This whole thing… it doesn't even feel real to me. I mean… that's him, Jack. That's actually him." For the first time since she had arrived, Samus's face showed real emotion, and if Jack had not known her better, he would have thought he had seen her eyes filling with tears as she gazed longingly at the door.

"It's been a long time, Sam." He looked over to the door as well. "You've changed a lot."

Samus half-smiled and looked him up and down. "You haven't. Aside from a few gray hairs anyway."

"Comes with being a parent, I guess." He also thought he could make out dark scarring under her make-up, and for the first time realized how odd it was to see her wearing make-up. "Have you given any thought to how you're going to tell him? Or would you like me to do it?"

"No," Samus replied very firmly with a shake of her head. "I've been thinking about this non-stop since before I left my last assignment. I need to be the one to tell him. I owe it to him at least."

"Okay…" Jack muttered hesitantly as he looked the woman over once more. He had spent the past fifteen years of his life basically living like a civilian, but he knew she had not. Though he had spoken to her on the phone occasionally, seeing Samus in person made him realize she had become a stranger to him. She had never exactly been the happiest, most well adjusted girl in the Army, but there was something almost frightening about the woman before him. Fifteen years as a mercenary had taken a toll, and he thought she looked like some part of her had died inside. She had the look of a killer now.

Regardless of his feelings, he knew she was right, and the news should come from her. Reluctantly, he opened the door and led Samus into his kitchen.

If the outside of Jack's house looked tidy but modest, the inside was a continuation of that. Though he was a single father living with a teenage boy, there was nothing about his house that resembled the typical bachelor pad. His kitchen was clean and organized, though not elaborately decorated. Most of the appliances were stainless steel, and a set of utensils hung from a rack above the stove. The counter tops were basic marble with dark wood cabinets that matched the table and set of four chairs. As Jack and Samus entered the kitchen, Hector looked over to them from where he had been putting away the groceries.

"Hey Dad," Hector said, as he looked between his father and the blonde woman. He was not sure why they both seemed to be staring so intently at him, but he was getting the impression the woman was here to meet him.

"Hector," Jack replied slowly, his face very serious as he regarded his son. "Would you mind having a seat at the table?"

"Um, sure." Hector tried to read his father to figure out what was going on, but his expression remained blank. "I'm almost done with the groceries."

"They can wait." Jack pulled out a seat and gestured to it. "Please, sit." Jack then turned as nodded to the woman beside him who sat across the table from the seat. Jack sat beside her, so when Hector sat down, he was facing the two of them.

"Hello, Hector," the woman said once more, staring at the boy again. Hector was not sure why she kept looking at him like that, but it gave him an uneasy feeling in his stomach.

"Hello," he repeated, sitting up straight as he faced the woman. He refused to fidget in from of this stranger despite how tempted to he was.

"Hector," his father said softly, motioning to the woman beside him. "This is Samus. She served with me in the Army before you were born. She was with me under General Malkovich's command."

The feeling in his stomach tightened at the General's name. Though it had been a long time since he had seen General Malkovich, Hector had grown up down the road from where his family lived. At the moment, he was dating the General's daughter, Abridgette, and the thought suddenly entered his mind that maybe this tough looking woman was here on his behalf. Maybe to threaten to beat him up or something if he hurt Abby…

However, instead of showing his concern, Hector opted to just fall back on his manners and avoid the subject. "It's nice to meet you, Ma'am."

Samus smiled, though it seemed almost like a nervous smile. "That's funny," she commented. "You sound just like a young gentleman."

Unsure what to make of her statement, the boy decided it could not hurt to inquire about why Samus was here and more specifically why she was so interested in him. "What brings you here this afternoon?"

She hesitated, and there was an awkward silence for a few moments. Finally, Jack realized that this conversation would not go anywhere unless he intervened.

"Hector," he said. "This is Samus Aran, the bounty hunter from the news. She's the one who took out the Space Pirate bases and helped end the war."

The boy's eyes widened as he looked between his father and the bounty hunter. He was not sure what to make of her, and wondered if his father had been kidding. However, one glance at the grave look on Jack's face let him know he was deathly serious and the woman sitting across from him was indeed the famous mercenary. Truth be told, Hector had never been a big fan of hers the way a lot of the other boys at his school were. He didn't have anything against the woman, but he also had never run out to the store to but a Samus action figure. He had never thought twice about her, but it struck him as odd that his father had never mentioned serving alongside her before.

"Wow," the boy said, still neither sure how to respond to the news nor why Samus seemed so interested in him. It did explain, however, why she had such an edge about her. "It's very nice to meet you, Ms. Aran. I think it's pretty awesome how you took out all those Space Pirates by yourself, and I think it's cool you once served with my father."

"Heh," Samus scoffed, looking away for a moment. "You don't need to be so formal with me, kid. Really."

"Um… okay."

Samus looked back at the boy, studying him. She looked like there was something she wanted to say, but for some reason she couldn't say it. Her cold eyes masked whatever intentions she had, and there was something very disconcerting about her gaze.

"Look," she said finally, relaxing her stiff posture, "I'm trying to think how to go about doing this but I really can't think of any good ways."

"Um…" Hector stared at her, confusion all over his face.

"I don't know you at all, and up until a minute ago, you had no idea who I was, so there really is no good way to go about doing this, right?"

"I guess?" He blinked his big green eyes a couple of times, anticipating what she was going to say next, although nothing she had said so far made any sense to him. He could not think of why Samus Aran wanted to meet with him.

"Look, Hector…" she rubbed her forehead, trying to consolidate her thoughts. "I'm sorry… I know I'm not making sense to you. And I'm sorry… for a lot of things." She looked up at him, an almost desperate look in her eyes that scared the boy. "I know I'm kinda showing up out of nowhere, and this is not how you thought your day would go. But you're not really a child anymore, and I… heh." She looked back down with a bitter smile. "I want you to know I did what I thought was best, and everything I did, I did what I thought was best for you. And maybe I was wrong for it, but it was what I honestly believed at the time."

She looked up as Hector as he finally began to realize what she was getting at.

"Hector," she said, waiting a moment for as understanding registered in the boy's eyes. She looked sadly at him as she continued. "I know I haven't been there for you your whole life, but I wanted to be the one to tell you this myself because I know you've been asking so many questions lately. I feel like I owe it to you, at the very least. Hector… I'm your mother."


	2. Hallmark Card Reunion

**Chapter 2: Hallmark Card Reunion**

Samus watched her son's face closely as her confession tumbled from her lips. There was something unreal about the whole situation, and she felt as though she were watching a movie as she saw his face go from confused and concerned to completely shocked and then to confused and angry. Even with all the reactions she had tried to anticipate, nothing could have prepared her for this moment. Fifteen years of hiding her identity had been undone in a single sentence, and there was no going back.

"You're my…" Hector stared at her in disbelief and quiet fury. His green eyed glare resembled her own, and Samus could only imagine what he was feeling behind it. "You're my mother? You? Samus Aran?  _Samus Aran_  is my… my  _mother_?"

Samus nodded calmly, although she felt anything but calm. "I know this must come as quiet the shock to you, but if you have any quest—"

"I've got a lot of questions." The boy looked at her, trying to remain expressionless but failing as his emotions broke through in his face and his words. "I've got a lot of questions, but I think the only one that matters is  _where the hell have you been the past fifteen years_?"

Samus did not answer right away as she processed his reaction. The boy clearly tried to remain stoic in emotionally charged situations, a defense mechanism she also employed, but he had not yet matured enough to maintain that detached aloofness. "When you were born," she began at last, speaking quietly and evenly, "I was only eighteen. I didn't have any family, and I knew I was not the type suited for motherhood. I was… more volatile back then. I had a very bad temper and very little patience, and I knew I could not give a child the sort of loving, stable environment they deserved.

"Your father," she continued with a nod toward Jack. "I knew he was a good man. He came from a good home and he had the means to care for you. We came to an agreement that once you were born, you would go into his sole custody and I would send child support every month. I couldn't go back into the Army, so I took work as a bounty hunter and later as a mercenary. Before long, I had made a lot of enemies, and there were a lot of people who wanted me dead. I couldn't risk coming around and putting you in danger, so I stayed away. I was trying to protect you. I live a dangerous life, and I've lost a lot of people because of it. I couldn't risk anything happening to you because of associating with me."

"And what's changed now?"

"A lot of things." Samus sighed. The boy was angry. Well, she couldn't blame him for that. It was hard for her to have this conversation and stay calm during it, but her feelings were not the important ones right now. "First of all, you're not a young child anymore. You're fifteen, only a year younger than I was when I joined the Army. Your father told me you've been asking questions about me, and I feel like you're entitled to know the answers."

He stared at her skeptically. "And your enemies?"

"Some are still around. The major ones are dead. Nobody outside my circle knows I'm here, and if any of my enemies find me, I'll kill them."

Samus saw Jack flinch at her mention of taking out her enemies. The momentary awkwardness made her wonder if perhaps she should try to censor her words more carefully around him and the boy.

"All right," Hector said after a moment, getting his emotions under control once more and looking more curious than anything else. "So, if you are Samus Aran, where is your space suit with the gun arm?"

"Heh… I don't wear that around all the time, you know." Samus smiled grimly. "For all intents and purposes, let's just say I'm having it dry cleaned at the moment."

"So how would you fight any enemies that attack?"

"I don't need the power suit to fight, Hector. But believe me, it's never actually out of reach."

Jack looked from his son to his son's mother and back to his son again. The level of tension at the table was so high he was not sure how much longer things would stay civil. He could see Hector's anger at this stranger who had just walked into his life and turned things upside down, and he could sense Samus's frustration with the whole situation. However she had expected this to unfold, it had taken a very different route, and he could only hope her temper had improved over the last fifteen years.

Samus stared eye to eye with the boy for a long time, neither willing to speak next or make any moves. On one hand, Samus was frustrated today had not become the tearful, hug-filled Hallmark card reunion she had envisioned in her mind. On the other hand, she was just happy to meet her son for the first time in either of their lives. Though he was angry with her, and she was certain it would take a lot of effort to win any kind of trust from him, she could see that he possessed a certain ferocity to him that his father did not. He looked so young with his doe-like green eyes and sandy hair, and Samus could see a lot of Jack in him. However, she could also see bits of herself. Particularly in his glare.

"Look, Hector," Samus said after a few tense minutes, "I don't expect you to be super happy about me coming here today. I know I left when you were born, and I know you've had to grow up feeling like your mother abandoned you. But I want you to know, your father and I made the arrangement we did because we thought it would give you the best opportunity to grow up and have a good life. I kept up my end of that bargain for fifteen years, and now I'm here. And I wanted to do right by you and your father, so I came here to say all this myself."

The boy appeared pensive as he processed what his mother said. "So you said what you came here to say?" he asked calmly, folding his hands on the table and looking down at them.

"Yes," Samus replied. "But if you have any other questions I—"

"So you can leave now?" He looked up at her.

"I…" Samus's shock was evident in her face as she stared at her son. His face was unreadable as he continued to look at her. "If that's what you would like, I can do that."

"I'd like that."

Samus could feel the tension in her chest turn into a stabbing pain as she sat across from the boy. She felt suddenly self-conscious and out of the place in the small suburban kitchen. The feeling that she was only watching a movie playing out returned as she stood up.

"I should be going then," she said. "It was nice meeting you, Hector. Even if it was briefly."

"I'll walk you out," Jack added as he stood up beside his son's mother. Samus just nodded and turned to leave. Hector stayed at the table while Jack followed her out.

The stabbing pain in Samus's chest felt like someone was twisting a knife into it. She could feel her lungs constricting as she struggled to catch her breath. She had endured a lot of pain in her life, a lot of pain in the past six months alone, but this was a new kind of pain. Her son's rejection had cut her to her core in a way no one had ever managed to do before. The best course of action, she decided, was to get back to Adam's house before Jack realized what was going on.

"Samus!" Jack called out behind her, but she ignored him as she walked.

She had a tunnel vision for Adam's house, and nothing else registered until she found herself back at his front door, fumbling with the spare key he had given her. Still having a hard time catching her breath, he closed the door behind her and attempted to make a beeline for his spare bedroom. However, before she could get there, she felt a strong hand reach out and grab her shoulder.

"Samus?" Adam's voice rang out as she spun around and threw his arm off of her. However, she recognized her friend before she had a chance to strike back and stopped.

"Adam?" she asked breathlessly, looking at the stunned General. "Why did you—?"

"I'm sorry," he replied, holding up his open hands and approaching her slowly. "I thought you saw me there."

General Adam Malkovich stood about an inch taller than Samus, but his entire demeanor was much calmer and more reserved than the bounty hunter's. He had dark almost-black hair streaked with gray and hard gray eyes. Always very proper, he carried himself as one would expect him to given his 32 year military career. His gray button down shirt and black slacks were clean and well pressed.

"I'm sorry, Adam. I've just had… it was a bit draining today, and I want to go sit down." She opened the door to her room and did not object when he followed her into it. Adam was generally more in tune to Samus than anyone she knew, and she did not mind his presence, even in moments like this.

"I take it things didn't go well?" he asked as Samus sat on the wide bench-sill of one of her windows.

"No…" Samus shook her head and held her hand to her chest as she tried to steady her breathing. "He wasn't happy to see me."

"Lady," Adam said gently, kneeling beside her, "you're very pale, and you seem to be having trouble breathing."

"I'm fine. Just upset." Samus tried to brush off his concerns but he persisted.

"You seem more than just upset. Do you mind if I take your heart rate and blood pressure?"

Since she had gotten out of the hospital a few weeks earlier, Adam had been hovering around Samus like a mother hen, worried that she might relapse at any time. It was a legitimate concern given how badly her lungs had been damaged by smoke inhalation during her last battle. She had already experienced several attacks that required some kind of breathing treatment. Still, she always hated him fussing over her and resented the idea that she could not care for herself.

"Whatever," she replied, holding out one arm so Adam could apply the pressure cuff. She knew he would not stop worrying until he saw nothing was wrong, and given how she must have looked, she could understand why he might think she was having an attack.

The General deftly took her pulse and pressure, and Samus added them to a virtual chart she pulled up on her watch's holoscreen.

"Your heart rate is fast, and your pressure is at 140 over 90. That's high, Samus." He ran the test again to confirm the original numbers.

"It's always high," she dismissed his concerns with a wave of her hand. She could feel the pressure in her chest beginning to let up already. "I told you it's just anxiety. Today didn't exactly go well."

"The fact that it's always high isn't a good thing," he said as he stood up and returned the equipment to a wicker basket set beside Samus's nightstand. Then he sat on the quilt that covered Samus's bed and looked at her. "How badly did it go?"

Samus scoffed and shook her head. "I'm pretty sure the kid hates me for abandoning him, but I don't know why I expected anything different."

"It's an understandable reaction."

"I know," Samus snapped as she turned away from the General and stared out the window to the suburban street. "I've read a lot about it, and I know rejection is natural and sometimes it just takes time and all that good crap. And I know I'm supposed to be patient and give him space to deal with it in his own way. I know that, and I'm trying to be patient and calm when I'm around him, but it's tough. So I guess I just want to be alone so I can be all brooding and angsty about it for a little while without getting in anyone else's way."

Adam laughed. "So you actually acknowledge you do that?"

Samus grinned and looked back at her friend. "Not to anyone else, but I'll make an exception for you." Her smile quickly faded, however. "I'm just worried he'll never get past feeling like I abandoned him though. I want a relationship with him. I wanted this reunion with him, but what if having me around really does him more harm than good?"

"Lady, regardless of how it may feel right now, we both know you never abandoned him. We both know you took some tough missions and risked your life repeatedly to provide for him. You kept him a secret to protect him, and you sacrificed having a relationship with him so that he had a chance at a life."

"I just wanted him to have the choices and opportunities I never did."

"And someday, he will understand that. He's a smart kid. But right now, this is all out of nowhere to him, and he doesn't know how to feel. He's been motherless his whole life, and you can't expect him to open up to a complete stranger and accept her as his mom in one day. Even if his mother is a famous space warrior."

Samus laughed. "I suppose you're right. Again. On the bright side, he didn't latch on to the fact that his mom is Samus Aran as though being related to me is like being a celebrity."

"Yes," Adam nodded as he smiled at his friend. "At least he's acknowledging you as a person and isn't just a rabid Samus Aran fan."

 


	3. White Ash

**Chapter 3: White Ash**

Adam closed the door to Samus's room as he walked out into the hall. He knew she had a lot of things to process, and he did not want to distract her. Meeting an estranged child was never easy, and he had figured that she would not return in a good mood. As he entered his office, he flipped on the light and locked the door behind him. There was a lot on his mind as well.

His office was not a large room, and it went mostly unused during his absences. It was not overly decorated, and it only had a small window looking out into their back yard. There were a few bookshelves because he actually owned a few sets of paper books, which were rare to come by these days. Just like everything about its owner's appearance, the desk at the center of the room was immaculately clean and well organized. Marza had made their second guest room into a home office a few years back to try to entice him to visit and work from home more often, but that effort had largely been in vain. If anything, it was the room to which Adam escaped when he was at home and did not feel up to being around his family.

It was not that he did not love Marza and the girls. Far from it. He loved them more than he had ever loved anyone in his life, but he rarely felt comfortable around them. That had not always been the case; the feeling started out small, only creeping up on him from time to time. At some point, he had started making excuses to stay at work later and later. By the time they moved to their house on Earth, he only saw them a few times a year. If you asked him why seeing them made him so uncomfortable, he would not have known what to say. He simply knew that the more he had seen in the Space Pirate War, the harder it had been not to see those images even when he was with his family. And nothing frightened him more than the times his mind would create the images of such atrocities happening to his family. When he was with them, those thoughts would plague him nearly constantly.

It was similar to what would happen to Samus, but not quite the same. Samus's flashbacks could be loud and violent. She would sometimes lash out at whoever was around her. For him, when the unwanted memories crept into his mind and refused to let go, he would simply withdraw from the world or throw himself into the logistics of his work. He had a feeling that on some level Marza knew what was going on, although she never addressed it directly. She simply possessed a patience with it that he found remarkable, and when they were together she would always go the extra mile trying to make him comfortable. The only part that ever really seemed to bother her was how absent he had been from his daughters' lives the past few years.

It was likely also part of why Marza was so comfortable with him spending as much time with Samus as he did. There was something about Samus he could relate to, and in a way she felt safe to him. Simply put, when he would imagine her thrown into the worst of the Space Pirate War, she always had a way to defend herself. It did not bother him to see her surrounded by the horrors of battle because that was where she belonged. The proverbial "Galactic Savior." He often worried for her safety and well-being, but she was a warrior through and through. It didn't frighten him to be with Samus.

Adam drew the curtains closed and sat down in his large brown leather chair. It was one of the few pieces of furniture he still had from before he and Marza had been married. Rolling himself closer to his desk, he paused to look at one of the old photos he kept on it. Most pictures were of his daughters, Abridgette and Evianna, but the one that caught his eye was of a short-haired young Samus standing beside his younger brother, Ian, when they had both been in the Army together.

Adam never spoke of his brother anymore. They had been born fifteen years apart and had always been strangers, more or less, despite having the same parents. He had been friendly with Samus briefly before she left the Army. Now he was merely white ash, half-hidden on one of the bookshelves.

Perhaps that had been the biggest factor in why the General now found it so hard to get close to anyone.

He looked closely at the picture of Samus. She must have been about seventeen, and she looked so different. It must have been a shock for Jack to see the difference in her. The Samus in the picture had short fuzzy hair, and she was very thin compared to how she was now. Not that Samus had ever been fat, but she was very muscular these days. Young Samus lacked the facial scars or any of the other scars one could now see on her body, and while she was not quite innocent looking, she did not have that emptiness in her eyes back then.

As he looked at the young blonde woman in the photograph, he thought back to the first time he had met Samus. He was thirty-three years old and had recently been promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He had been assigned to act as Commanding Officer to his troops in the Federation Army's Seventh Squadron. At the time, he had been the most junior of all the Commanding Officers in his section of the military, and as a sort of hazing ritual, some of the other officers had decided to assign him the worst problem soldier in the Army: Private Aran.

Though she was only sixteen, she had apparently been the guinea pig for some experimental social program that tried to enlist homeless juvenile delinquents in the military. She had been brought in from a women's prison on Calliope IX, and given her destructive disciplinary record, that was where they were planning to ship her back to. First, however, they thought it would be interesting to throw the Army's newest Commanding Officer to the wolves and watch how he tried to handle her.

Aran was being held in what was essentially a makeshift interrogation room the first time he saw her, although he was already familiar with her reputation. Her hands were cuffed behind her back and one side of her face was bruised, the result of a fight she had apparently started. He was no longer able to remember the details of what had happened, but apparently she had had an episode of her explosive temper that culminated in her throwing a 200 pound steel conference table out of a third floor window. Serving on his squadron would be her last chance before receiving a dishonorable discharge and being sent back to prison.

From the moment Adam walked into the room, she glared at him like she wanted him dead, and he knew she already did not think there was any hope that she would be able to stay in the Army very long. He was not even sure that she preferred the Army to prison, and from day one it was readily apparent that she did not belong in either of those places. Either way, he composed himself and decided to approach this as he would any other assignment, by trying to prove his capabilities.

"Hello," he said calmly as he took a seat across the table from Aran in the otherwise empty cinderblock room. "I'm Lieutenant Colonel Adam Malkovich, and I've been told you were assigned to my squadron this afternoon."

The girl just glared back at him with her feral eyes. She knew what a serious offense she had just committed, and she did not trust anyone right then.

He placed his hands on the table in front of him and folded them. Trying to remain relaxed, he decided to strike up a conversational tone with his newest soldier. "And you are Private Samus Aran, correct? I'll be acting as your Commanding Officer from here on out. Hopefully, you'll find your place on the Seventh provided that there are no more incidents like this one."

Aran looked at him skeptically and raised an eyebrow. "You clearly don't know what you're in for."

"Then why don't you tell me?" He tried to remain indifferent, and perhaps if the girl had been over eighteen he would not have bothered being so patient, but something bothered him about the idea of shipping a sixteen year old girl off to a prison for being moody and rebellious. True, she was a particularly destructive teenage girl with a criminal record, but she had clearly had a hard life to end up homeless so young. He wondered if she had ever really been given a chance. "What am I getting myself into? What should I know if you are going to serve under me?"

The girl grinned wickedly. "That it won't be for long. We both know I'm out of here next time I put a toe out of line, and we both know that will happen sooner rather than later." She had a hint of a strange accent he could not place, but her records had listed her as a delta-class semi-human so that did not surprise him.

"Perhaps." He brushed off her words and decided to continue business as usual. "Personally, I don't think this arrangement is going to work out well if we start out with the assumption that you're getting booted out tomorrow. I'd prefer to see you do well and go on to at least complete the period for which you've enlisted."

Aran stared at him as though he had two heads. She was not sure if he was being kind, optimistic, or stupid, but she suspected the last one.

"So tell me," Adam continued in his calm, even voice, "What happened today? What made you so angry?"

"You're… you're actually asking me?" She looked bewildered at the thought. "Didn't you see what they wrote in my record?"

Adam nodded. "I read the reports. I want to hear it from you."

Looking him up and down, Aran hesitated as she internally debated whether or not she should bother speaking to the Lieutenant Colonel. In the end, she decided she had nothing left to lose and might as well. "I punched Private Finch. Then Private Sanders and Private Carroway punched me, and a brawl kind of broke out. I don't remember what happened next. There was just a big hole where the window was, and the conference table was gone." She watched his face for any change in its expression, but he remained stoic.

"So you blacked out? Has this happened before?"

Aran nodded tentatively. "Sometimes when I'm angry, yes."

"Why did you punch Finch?"

"He called me a mutt, and I got angry." Her patience with the talk of her feelings had drawn to its end. "You going to punish me now, Sir?"

Adam shook his head. "No, I think we've already established that punishing you doesn't do anything. You're positively incorrigible in that regard. I will, however, mandate that you undergo a proper psychiatric evaluation if you wish to remain in this Army. We can't afford anymore episodes like that, understood?"

The girl growled in a way that barely sounded human. "I'm not fucking crazy!"

"I didn't say you were." His voice never lost its cool as he tried to speak to her in a tone that was firm but gentle. "But I think I would be correct to assume you've had something of an unconventional life, and I doubt you've had the greatest support network. You're still very young, too young to be condemned to a life going in and out of prison, in my opinion. I think there are a lot of things you are repressing, a lot of anger, and I think you deserve help with that."

Though Aran remained skeptical, he could tell some of her rage softened. Years later, she would tell him it was because he was the first human ever to take an interest in her well-being, and it had touched her on some level. For the rest of her year and a half in the Army, he could tell she really tried to be a model soldier, but some combination of her personality and inner demons had prevented that from ever becoming a reality. To this day, he was certain that leaving the Army was one of the best choices she had ever made.

He often wondered if she had regarded him as a paternal figure because she came to him for advice often and sometimes just followed him around. He really never minded his presence, and Marza seemed to like her as well, so Samus had become more or less like a part of their family. Even after she got out of the Army, she came around sometimes, though there were long stretches of time when he did not hear from her, particularly once her mercenary career had taken off. Still, she always seemed to keep him in high regard, and as they both grew older, their relationship changed to the close friendship they shared now.

Adam placed the picture back on his desk. He knew Samus was not the reason why he had picked it up in the first place, and once more he studied the figure beside her. Samus had saved his brother once, against his orders. It was her most blatant act of insubordination against him. But Samus had long since left the military by the time Ian had been deployed with the first round of troops trying to take Zebes, the Pirates' Stronghold.

There had been a few survivors of that raid. Ian was not one of them.

When he found out Samus had contracted for her solitary mission to try to take down their leaders and exterminate the Metroids, he feared that she would suffer the same fate. But she didn't.

She was still here. Down the hall, in fact.

He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He knew that if she could get up the nerve to meet her estranged son of fifteen years, the least he could do was attempt to spend time around his own family. With a sigh, he stood up and headed for the door.

 


	4. How You Get Ants

**Chapter 4: How You Get Ants**

When Adam walked into his kitchen, he was surprised to find Samus already sitting at the table talking to Marza and Evianna. Adam's wife was a short woman with light brown hair. She was a bit rounder than either Adam or Samus, but that made sense given the much gentler life she lived. She had sharp brown eyes that always seemed to be darting around and analyzing the situation, and her intuition was frequently spot-on. Evianna looked like a much younger version of her mother except for her bright red hair and green eyes. She was thirteen years old, but she carried herself with the composure of a much older girl.

It appeared that Evianna was assisting her mother with some cooking while Samus sipped her coffee. The bounty hunter was the only one who noticed Adam's presence and smiled as she moved in further to the booth seat that wrapped in an "L" shape around the kitchen table. She motioned for him to sit next to her, but he ignored her as he approached Marza and his youngest daughter.

"Good afternoon," he greeted his family in his cool voice as Evianna spun around to look at him.

"Good afternoon, Daddy!" the girl called back to him with a grin as she continued to mix something in a bowl. "Mom and I are working on lunch for us to share. Abby's out but she should be home soon."

"Hello, Adam." Marza smiled as she walked over and kissed him on the cheek. "Glad you could finally join us." She gestured over to the table. "Now, go have a seat with Sam. We're making puff pastries for lunch."

"Puff pastries?" Adam asked as he sat beside his friend and watched.

Evianna nodded. "They're gonna be filled with turkey and cheese and mushrooms! Like sandwiches, only better." As she was talking, the girl accidently spilled a bit of whatever concoction she was mixing up.

"Evie!" Marza exclaimed, grabbing a paper towel and rushing to clean it up. "Do you want ants? This is how you get ants!"

Adam glanced over to Samus. "I take it they wouldn't let you help?"

The bounty hunter took another sip of coffee and grinned. "I am perfectly all right with that."

The two them sat back and continued to watch the odd synchronized cooking routine Marza and Evianna performed. Adam was amazed at just how much his youngest daughter seemed like a teenage version of her mother. It was almost eerie how the two of them seemed to communicate wordlessly as they worked, always knowing where each was supposed to be and which task they were performing. It was a strange dance of mixing, kneading, cleaning, and chopping, but they seemed to know all of the steps.

It did not surprise him that Evianna had taken after her mother; that had always been obvious. He was simply shocked at what a young woman she had become during his absence.

"Weird sitting here sipping coffee when you don't have a cup." Samus raised her eyebrow at him and gestured toward the coffee pot. "Pop in a pod already. I'm having caffeine withdrawals just looking at you."

"Lady, have you ever considered you may have a caffeine problem?" Despite chastising Samus, he got up and went to coffee maker himself. He selected a rich macadamia and hazelnut blend and placed the tiny coffee pod into the machine. Within seconds, the steaming brown liquid dispensed into his cup, and he returned to his seat beside Samus.

"Honestly, Adam, have  _you_  ever considered you might have a caffeine problem?" Samus laughed as she stared at her friend. "You hypocrite!"

"I'm pretty sure my caffeine intake is the least of my problems."

The bounty hunter rolled her eyes. "True."

Adam quietly drank his coffee for a few minutes as Samus watched, enthralled by the kitchen antics of his family. It was strange how much more at peace she seemed around them than he did.

"You're out of your room earlier than I thought you would be," he said after a while. He had honestly expected her to sit in there and brood a lot longer given how harshly it seemed her son had rejected her.

Samus shrugged. "I knew this was a possibility. It hurt. It still hurts, but there's no point of locking myself up and dwelling on it. Fifteen years is a long time, and there's a good chance he might just need space to sort out his own feelings. I've been planning to meet him for weeks now. He only just found out today."

Adam looked at her sideways. "Who are you, and what have you done with Samus Aran?"

Samus punched him playfully in the arm and shook her head. "I'm trying to be patient and understanding and all that shit people are supposed to be after they spawn. I've been working really hard on it."

"Well, your language may need some polish, but I'd say you're doing a good job so far. Giving him room to breathe was the right thing to do."

"Well, I figure," she replied with a shrug, "if he's anything like me, and he tells someone to go away, he actually wants them to go away, and sticking around against his wishes would make him feel crowded. I just want to respect his boundaries."

"Hmm." Adam mused as he sipped his coffee. "You really have been working on yourself." Though he had never said it to Samus, he had often thought she would have made a good mother if she had been given the chance. But circumstances had been what they were, and there was no way to get back the lost years. Still, she had the potential. "He is like you in a lot of ways, you know."

"Oh?"

The General nodded. "I haven't spent excessive amounts of time with him, but the boy did grow up near my house. He often reminded me of you. Particularly his glare."

Samus laughed. "You can say that again! I got a taste of that first hand today. Man, I must have one hell of a glare!"

"That you do, Lady. That you do."

Adam was just beginning to feel more relaxed when he heard the front door open. He remembered Evianna saying that Abridgette was on her way home and did not pay much attention to it. She would come in for lunch whenever she was ready, and Marza had just put the pastries in the oven to bake while Evianna cleaned up. It was not until he noticed the pale look of shock on Samus's face that he turned and looked toward the entrance to the kitchen.

"Mom, I'm home!" Abby called as she walked in, Hector following close behind her. "Hello, Dad!"

Adam could feel Samus sinking ever so slightly back into her seat, and the pale expression on her face matched the boy's as he shifted behind Abby. With the events of the morning, he had all but forgotten his oldest daughter was currently dating Samus's son, and he never thought she might bring him here.

Oblivious to the situation, Abby turned to Hector and gestured to his mother. "Hector, this is my Aunt Sam. She's staying with us for a little while."

"Aunt?" Hector replied, looking confused and somewhat horrified.

Adam was slightly perplexed by the boy's reaction until he heard Samus say "We aren't related biologically." She stared down to the bottom of her coffee mug.

"No…" Abby replied. It was her turn to feel confused. "We're not, but why would that matter?"

Samus shrugged without looking up. "It doesn't. Besides, the boy and I have met already."

Taken aback by her aunt's coldness, Abby turned to Hector. "She's normally really a lot of fun. She's been to all sorts of planets and things. You should have her tell you about her missions."

Hector looked at Samus, his face thoughtful for a moment. Samus retuned the look, trying not to stare but simultaneously finding herself trying to memorize every inch of her son's face. A mix of elation, fear, and shame swirled through her as she waited to see how he would respond to her this time.

"I know who she is," he said after a while in a calm, even voice that sounded reminiscent of Adam's. "She's Samus Aran. I know about her missions." He paused, nervousness flickering across his young face despite his efforts to hide it. "But I think I would enjoy hearing about them if she's willing to tell me."

Samus's eyes widened as she stared at her son. Had she been a more outwardly emotional woman, she was certain she would have cried with joy. As it was, all she could do was stare. It frightened her that another person could affect her so deeply with so few words, and she wondered how parents who actually raised their children did it.

"If you'd like," Samus said quietly, locking eyes with her son, "I would be happy to tell you about them."

Adam looked over to his friend. He knew she was nervous, but he could also sense her excitement. There were so many things she wanted to tell her boy, and she didn't know where to start.

"Lady," Adam said, sliding out of the booth to let her up, "if you'd like to talk to Hector, the gazebo in the backyard is empty. I think that would be a nice place to sit, and it's fairly private."

Samus nodded to her friend as she stood up and looked back at the boy, her eyes still wide with shock and anticipation. It was a strange look for her to wear.

"Would you like to go outside, Hector?" she asked, gesturing to the back door off of the kitchen.

Hesitantly, the boy nodded and followed his mother out into the backyard, ready to speak to her. Abridgette felt even more confused than she had before, but something told her not to follow them because they were not going outside simply to talk about Samus's missions.

The Malkovich's backyard was fairly spacious. There was a cement patio with a grill, a table, and a set of chairs, and beyond that there was a lot of open grassy space. Across the back fence, Marza had a vegetable garden growing, and in another area was a swing-set left over from when the girls were smaller. Samus led Hector to the Gazebo with stood over in the back right quadrant under the shade of a maple tree.

As they stepped up into the octagonal structure and took seats across from one another, Samus could feel her heart racing. Fighting Ridley had not made her so nervous as meeting her son had, and despite his initial rejection of her, she had another chance.

"Look," Hector began as they sat down, "I'm sorry if I came off kind of rude earlier. I really just… I guess I just didn't know what to think about you. It was weird, and meeting you was the last thing on my mind today."

Samus nodded. "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have sprung it on you like that. You needed time to process, and I guess it was a pretty big shock."

"You're not mad?"

She shook her head. "How could I be? You felt the way you felt. You needed space. I just wish I could have done things differently and not upset you."

"Yeah… I guess." Hector studied the mercenary's face, noticing the dark scars spidered around her right eye showing beneath her fading make-up. Her tank top revealed her muscular arms, which he noticed were also scarred, although in a more natural fashion than her face. There was a heavy chain around her neck with a round metal pendant with a lightning bolt going through it. "I know you never actually abandoned me. Dad told me you sent money every month… I've known that since I was a little kid. I just figured, if you could send money every month, how come you couldn't be bothered to meet me? Even once?" His voice broke slightly on the last word, but he continued. "You're Samus Aran, and I guess it makes sense now. Why you couldn't see me. But still, I've been angry at you for a long time, and I can't just make that go away because of some magical explanation." He looked down and away from Samus, hunching his shoulders slightly.

"I wanted to meet you," she said softly after a moment. "Not a day of my life has gone by in the past fifteen years where that wasn't true. I wanted to be there for you, to know what you looked like. I never even got the chance to see you when you were born. I just… I've never been suited for motherhood. It's never been me. And I knew you would have a better life with your father than I could give you. A war is no place for a child. I know that personally."

The boy looked back up at her. "Why did you come here now?"

"That's a good question." She smiled, although she still looked sort of nervous. "I thought you were entitled to know the truth and to hear it from me. You're not a little boy anymore, Hector. You can be trusted to keep a secret." She looked at him very seriously. "A secret that could easily mean life or death."

Hector nodded solemnly. "I won't tell anyone. Does anyone else know?"

"Adam does. Marza does. The girls don't… although I don't see why they shouldn't. They're old enough, and they have never gone around bragging that Samus Aran is their aunt. I know you probably talk to Abby about a lot. I don't mind if you tell her."

"How long are you planning to stay around?"

Samus shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed. "I'm not sure. My last battle… it kind of did a number on me, and I'm staying her for a bit while I heal and repair my suit."

"So your suit is here?"

The bounty hunter grinned. "It's always here." She picked up the metallic disc on its heavy chain around her neck. "It's in here, and it can't be removed. It's a part of my body, if you can understand that."

Hector stared at the power suit quizzically. "How does it fit in there?"

Samus smiled. "You're familiar with the morph ball, yes? I know the media talks about that a lot." Anytime one of her missions became big on the news, there was inevitably some segment in which people speculated how her morph ball function worked without killing her. "When I roll into the morph ball, my body is converted into energy and is held within it. When my suit is off, it also reverts to energy and stays within this pendant."

"Wow… that's pretty cool. I didn't know we had that kind of technology."

"Heh… well, you don't. Humans and the Federation in general don't, but I was raised by an extinct alien race, and they had a huge assortment of energy-based technology. Things people on Earth would never believe." Her eyes lit up as she remembered her days amongst the Chozo, wishing she could show their worlds to her son. Zebes, the closest thing she had to a home planet, had been destroyed on a previous mission, however, and there was no way to show him her home.

"Wait…" Hector looked confused again. "Are you human? Am I human?"

Once again, the bounty hunter smiled sadly. "You are one hundred percent human. I, however, am not. I was born human, but I was genetically modified as a child." Her look became grim. "I'm a bioweapon, Hector."

She could tell he knew what that meant by the look that came over his face, and she felt momentarily ashamed. She did not like to admit such things, particularly within the highly anti-bioweapons–research segments of Galactic Federation territory. Earth Humans, in particular, were extremely conservative when it came to their stance on bioweapons, and in a lot of ways she agreed with them. Adam had always been stanchly anti-bioweapon, and it had only been within the past couple of months that she had "come out" to him about what she actually was. Although he had likely figured it out a long time ago.

"A bioweapon," the boy repeated, looking disgusted by the thought. His disgust did not seem to be aimed at Samus, thankfully, but rather at those who had created her. "Your aliens did that to you."

Samus nodded. "Don't think too harshly of them. I wouldn't have been able to survive on their planet without the mods… You see, they rescued me after my family was murdered and—" She stopped, noticing the look of shock mixed with horror on her son's face. "Maybe that's a story for a different time though."

 


	5. Superheroes Can't Do Everything

**Chapter 5: Superheroes Can't Do Everything**

As the day drew to an end, the sun lowered itself below the tops of the trees as the air took on a pleasant chill. Though it was late spring, the night was cool and dry in a way that felt almost like autumn. The setting sun illuminated the tops of the trees and made the forests appear to be on fire.

Samus sat atop a picnic table in front of a small ice cream shop on the side of the mountain as she watched the day end. Though she had been on Earth for nearly a month now, the sight of the rising and setting sun never ceased to amaze her. Before now, she had never visited Earth in her life, and as she marveled at the beauty of humanity's original planet, she felt herself growing more attached to humanity as a whole. It was a sobering thought to think she was on the same planet, watching the same sun, and studying the same stars as the first humans who ever lived. That probably was not how most people thought about a sunset, but to Samus, coming to Earth meant setting foot on a completely alien world.

The mercenary licked her dripping ice cream cone and looked over to her son sitting beside her. He seemed almost as mesmerized as she was as they sat overlooking the dense forests of the Adirondacks. It had been a very long day, and it felt strange for her to think now that twenty-four hours ago, she had never even met the boy. In a lot of ways, meeting her son for the first time was like coming to Earth had been. For all intents and purposes, they had been two complete strangers with no connection, but yet, the moment she saw him, she knew he was hers.

That was not to say that either was fully comfortable around the other. Samus was still a bit gun-shy after his complete rejection of her that morning, and Hector still had his unresolved feelings of abandonment. But for the time being, they put those insecurities to the side as they simply sat atop a picnic table on the side of a mountain, eating ice cream and watching the sun set.

For a long time, they had sat out back in Adam's gazebo talking about random things, trying to catch up on fifteen lost years, knowing they would not be able to make so much as a dent in only one afternoon. At some point, they had left without bothering to tell anyone, and Hector had taken her over to one of his favorite hiking trails in the woods. They both figured it would be a quiet, neutral location in which they would not have to worry about anyone overhearing them. However, the walk ended up mostly silent as Samus took the opportunity to explore the dense, peaceful woods, even wandering off the trail a few times as Hector reluctantly followed behind, wondering if she even knew what poison ivy was. It amused him how unfamiliar she seemed with the plant and animal life on this planet, and after a while it started to dawn on him that his mother actually was an alien. Sort of.

Samus was not sure what she was doing or what their goal was, but she was happy just to spend time with Hector. She had honestly believed for the past fifteen years that this day would never come, and she still felt like she would wake up any moment. The only times she had ever dreamed about her son, she always ended up waking up, drenched in sweat and trembling. The nightmares always ended the same way, the child being killed by Ridley as she watched helplessly. They had been the same for fifteen years, and while she knew Ridley was finally dead for good, she still felt particularly on edge and hypervigilant being around her son. A few times when they had been on the hiking trail, she had heard people coming and led them deeper into the woods so they would not be seen. Logically, she knew no one knew she was here and that this area was mostly safe, but nowhere was ever safe in her mind. She had been conditioned by too many years of fighting and having to look over her shoulder constantly. But she tried the best she could to relax now as the two of them sat together.

"Um…" Hector muttered awkwardly after a while, looking at his mother with a perplexed expression. "I was just wondering what I'm supposed to call you? Do I have to call you 'mom'? Because… I'm not trying to be rude, but that doesn't feel right… if that makes sense."

"Heh," Samus looked over at the boy and smiled. "I don't really care either way. I really don't feel like a mom, to be perfectly honest. I think I would feel weird if you just started calling me 'mom' when I only met you a few hours ago."

"So… Miss Aran?"

"Ugh, no." Samus shook her head. "That makes me sound like some kind of lonely elementary school teacher. Just 'Samus' is fine. I hate formalities."

"Right… Samus." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "That's a human name. Is that the one you were born with?"

The mercenary nodded. "The name's always been the same, although I recently found out I had a middle name when I was born."

"Um… do you mind if I ask you about something you said before?" He shifted uncomfortably to face her better as he set down the empty napkin that had once held his ice cream cone.

"Ask me anything," she replied with more confidence than she actually felt. She knew he would have a lot of questions, and there were so many parts of her life she hated discussing.

"Well, you said earlier that your family was murdered?"

Samus paused, her expression fading as she stared blankly at the ground in front of her. This question was the one she had been hoping to avoid. "Yes, they were." Her tone was more flat than usual. It was the monotone that frequently alerted Adam that her mind was going into problematic territory. "In school, you learned about the series of raids that led up to the formal declaration of the Space Pirate War, correct?"

The boy nodded, somewhat unnerved by her sudden change in demeanor.

"I was a survivor of one of those raids. The only one from my colony, actually. I was a child… a very young child. That was the first time I met Ridley, the leader of the Space Pirates. I'm sure you've heard of him on the news. I had been hiding but… I don't know why… I walked up to him. I was afraid but I guess… I tried talking to him, as ridiculous as that sounds, thinking maybe if we could talk and be friends… He had no interest in that. Of course. My mother… your grandmother… she threw herself between us and stood to fight him armed with nearly nothing." Samus stopped for a moment, and something about her blank stare and empty eyes let Hector know she watching the events unfolding. "I saw him kill her. I saw his tail run straight through her and heard… the noises. Then the explosions came. I don't know how I lived, but I did." She looked at her son, her expression haunting. "I have an unfortunate habit of living while the people around me don't."

Hector just nodded quietly, not knowing what to say about that. There were no points of reference in his life to use to imagine what those events must have been like for Samus. He was sorry he asked about her family's murder and realized he should have been smarter with what he said. That was far too heavy of a topic for day one. On some level, however, he was glad he had asked. Suddenly, he had a much better understanding about why she had left him, and it had nothing to do with just wanting to abandon him.

"I'm sorry that happened to you," he said after a minute.

The bounty hunter shook her head. "Don't be," she said, and he noticed her voice and face starting to return to normal. "If that hadn't happened, you wouldn't be here. I probably would have lived my whole life mining Afloraltite on the Outer Planets, and I would never have met your father. And honestly, making you is probably the only good thing I've ever done that didn't involve shooting something."

"So you avoided me?"

Samus nodded. "Right or wrong, I thought it was the right choice."

Hector looked out over the forest again as some birds flew out of the trees and into the orange sky. "Part of me understands that. I mean, you're Samus Aran. I guess you really wouldn't want anyone to find out you had a kid or something. But I still feel like… why did you never come meet me?" He stared at the mercenary, hints of her glare in his eyes. "Didn't you think I had some right to know? That my mother was some kind of galactic guardian and not just some deadbeat who didn't want me?"

Samus kept her expression very calm, although it took a good bit of effort. "That's why I'm here now."

"After fifteen years?"

"Children can't usually be trusted with secrets. I realized recently that you're almost a man now. Sure, you've got a ways to go, but you're hardly a child. You can keep a secret. I always thought you would be better off not knowing who I was. You'd never be tempted to tell the other boys at school or whatever. I wanted you to have a childhood, not to spend your entire life in hiding because of what I was."

"I feel like I should have gotten some say in that."

Samus shrugged. "Maybe you should have. Or maybe keeping you in the dark is what has kept you alive so far. I have a lot of enemies, kid."

He listened to her, trying to understand. It was difficult on a few different levels. Her reasons made perfect sense, but part of him wanted to be angry with her. "I really hate that. I mean, you're Samus Aran. Couldn't you just take out any bad guys who tried to mess with me? Couldn't you just teach me to fight?"

Samus laughed humorlessly. "Remember how I wanted you to have a childhood and all that? I was trained as a warrior since I was old enough to talk. I didn't want that life for you. And even if I can protect you, I can't be there all the time. And I don't think you'd want your mom hovering around you all the time."

"Still… you shouldn't have left." His voice lacked conviction, but he had to say it. It was hard to undo years of pent up emotion in one day, and he needed to say the words he had been thinking for his whole life.

"You're entitled to your opinion, Hector, but it won't change the past." She paused, looking out over the trees as the orange sky faded to black. Stars peaked through the darkest parts as night fell over the mountains. "But I can try to be better moving forward if you'll let me. I may not ever be able to be a 'mom' but I'd like to at least have a chance to be someone to you."

He sat on her words for a while, trying to figure out how to respond. "Well, I guess I can give you a pass this time. You did save the world and stuff. I guess superheroes can't do everything all the time." The boy grinned suddenly, dispelling the tension between the two of them.

The mercenary laughed so suddenly she snorted and put a hand to her face in embarrassment. "Superhero, huh? You've got the wrong woman. I'm just doing what they pay me for."

"Because of vengeance and justice and stuff though, right?" The boy was laughing, and Samus felt a little lighter.

"Look, you got a bounty hunter for a mom, not Batman. I'm not that exciting!"

"I dunno, secret identity… no one sees your face… dark, tragic backstory… fighting evil. If that's not a superhero, what is?"

The woman just grinned and shrugged. "Fine, call me whatever you want. But I draw the line at fighting in ridiculous skin-tight outfits and high heels."

* * *

Adam was back in his office when he looked out his window and realized Samus and Hector had left. He didn't blame them for wanting to get out on their own, but he wished Samus had told him where they were going. It didn't make sense to worry about them. Samus was more than capable of keeping them both safe. Still, he had been feeling uneasy about her condition after her last battle. It was not often a fight was bad enough to put the space warrior into the hospital, and her recovery seemed to be taking a bit longer than usual.

Although, that part could be in his head, he acknowledged. She had not had a breathing attack in a good while, and her arm hardly seemed to bother her anymore. Something just did not seem right, though, and he hesitated to chalk that all up to anxiety about meeting her son. Truth be told, he had not even seen her activate her power suit since before the Space Dragon battle and had no idea what sort of condition it was in. She did not seem worried, though, and he figured that was a good sign.

He was about to sit down at his desk when his watch suddenly began to beep. He hit the button quickly to answer the call and heard the voice of Fleet Admiral Castor Dane come into his earpiece.

"Hello?"

"General Malkovich?"

"Speaking. How can I help you, Admiral Dane?" Dane was a large, older man who had seen more of the Space Pirate War than anyone aside from perhaps Samus. He had lost his family at a young age to the Pirates and had been involved in fighting them since long before the raid on Samus's homeworld.

"I just wanted to give you a head's up, Adam. About that Earth Colony you were asking about the other day."

"Hadley's Hope?"

"That's the one, out on LV-426. Still no signal. Keaton's getting involved. Wants to send in someone to check it out."

Adam's brow furrowed in concern. "If Keaton's involved, something is wrong. Are they looking to use military or mercenaries?"

"Military. Getting too much backlash for using mercenary force so much during the War. Probably send in a few troops by this time tomorrow. Thinking Marines most likely."

The General nodded. "Keep me informed."

"Will do," the Admiral replied as he disconnected.

 


	6. Energy Source

**Chapter 6** : Energy Source

It was late by the time Samus got back to Adam's house, and most of his family was already in bed. She found the General, however, sitting in his recliner in the living room and reading something on his tablet. He had on his usual dark grey slacks and a blue sweater. It was one of the rare times Samus saw him wearing his reading glasses, and as he looked up at her, she thought he looked tired.

"Back so soon, Lady?" he asked, noticing the way his friend seemed to be glowing. He could not recall the last time he had seen her look so happy, but it made him smile.

Samus grinned as she strode over to the couch and sat down on it. "We were gone for ten hours. Knowing the way you've been fussing over me lately, I'm surprised you didn't send a damn search party."

"Hmph." The General grunted. "I figured you could handle yourselves, but Jack was another story. One of you should have at least texted the poor guy to let him know you weren't bringing his son back."

"Hope he didn't freak out too bad. Honestly, I thought the boy would do it." The bounty hunter kicked off her combat boots and swung her legs up onto the couch.

Adam took off his glasses and switched off his tablet as he turned to give Samus his full attention. "So how did it go?"

The bounty hunter smiled with a genuine joy he was certain he had never seen her express. "It went very well. We sat outside and talked for a while, and then we went hiking in the woods and got ice cream. We ate it while watching the sun set over the forest."

"And you parted on better terms this time, I take it?"

She nodded. "Yeah… He seems like he's warming up to me, you know? I just… it's been so many years, you know, and I never thought I'd see this day. I still kind of think it might be a dream. But it's not. This boy is my son, Adam!" She practically yelled the last part, earning her a reproaching glare from the General to remind her his family was asleep upstairs. "Anyway," she continued more quietly, "I just feel a lot of things right now. But they're mostly good things, I think."

"I'm happy for you."

"There are some things that are bothering me too, but I've been trying not to focus on those. I really like this kid. I'm happy if I had to have spawned someone, it turned out to be him."

Adam laughed. "You have such an odd way of phrasing things sometimes."

"Yeah," Samus replied, a bit more somberly. "I just wish I could have been there for him more. He's been harboring a lot of anger all these years, thinking I straight up abandoned him because I didn't want him. It was never about not wanting him, but it makes me really question if I did the right thing or if I just did the right thing for me."

"You did what you had to do." Adam's face was even more serious than usual as he looked Samus in the eyes. "It wasn't just what was right for you. If anything, it was horrible for you, but it was ultimately right for him and for the galaxy. You have a purpose, Samus. And as much as I dislike the fact that you were saddled with that purpose without your consent, the fact remains that the galaxy needed and continues to need Samus Aran."

Samus stared at him, shocked by his abruptness. She started to say something but stopped as he began speaking again.

"I'm not trying to be cruel, Lady, but the reality is that you can't afford to waste your life second-guessing and regretting the choices you made. You've made those choices. You've always done what you believed was right by him. You're in his life now. Where you go from here is up to the two of you."

"Heh." Samus looked down nervously. "I have no idea what I'm doing or whether I've actually done anything right so far. Right now I'm on top of the world, but I keep having these doubts and fears. And everything he says or does… I've never met anyone who could swing my emotions around like that."

The General smiled knowingly. "That's called being a parent, Samus. It's the highest of highs and the lowest lows, and you'll never actually be sure what you're doing. What you're feeling is natural."

"So regular people feel these things too?"

He nodded. "Yes. And they all worry that nobody else does, and they're just bad at parenting. It's easy to feel overwhelmed and isolated. You're not any different in that regard. You just care about you son and the way your actions affect him."

Samus nodded quietly, taking a moment to process what he said. "It's so hard to tell. No one talks about that part, you know? And I know I'm different from other parents as it is… I'm a fucking bioweapon for crying out loud! I'm barely even human!"

Her face twisted in the fashion it did right before her rage episodes, and normally Adam would have stepped in. This time, however, he waited and watched as the mercenary caught herself and took a breath. She placed a hand to her chest and breathed for a minute until she was calm. "But thinking like that doesn't help anything. I am what I am, and I can't change that. I can only try to be a better mom for him from here on out. I love him, and I just want to give him a good life."

Adam looked at her for a while as she stared back, confused by his lack of a response. He had figured that her temper would start to cool a few weeks ago when she had begun working to get it under control. After her stay at the hospital, she had started seeing a doctor and taking medication for her post-traumatic stress disorder, which had flared up in a particularly nasty way after her final battle on Zebes. However, no medication alone could have caused the change he saw as he looked at Samus.

"Lady," he said softly, unsure how she would react. "I don't think I've ever heard you use that word before."

"Hmmm?" She looked confused for a few seconds and then realized what he meant. "You mean 'love'?"

The General nodded. "I've always known you were capable of it, but I've never heard you say it." He smiled. "You've gotten stronger, Samus."

The mercenary looked embarrassed as she shifted in her seat. "Taking a bullet for someone is easy. I could protect people in my sleep. Infiltrating enemy bases is next to nothing. But there are other things in life I'm less good at, but I'm trying to get better at them. There's no shame in saying I love someone, and acknowledging that won't automatically cause me to lose them." She smiled. "After all, we've been friends over fifteen years, and I still have you."

Adam raised his eyebrows. "Noted," he said with a sly grin.

Samus laughed. Despite her fears, she really was in an excellent mood. Although Adam was happy for her, he still thought it strange to see the tall, blonde, scarred, battle-hardened mercenary smiling like a schoolgirl. Very strange, but in a good way.

"Lady," he said more seriously after a few minutes, "how are the repairs on your suit coming along?" He had not heard her mention anything about her power suit for a long time, and with the LV-426 situation still fresh on his mind, he decided it was time to address it directly.

"Heh." Her face fell at the question, and she seemed slightly annoyed. "They're coming along. The suit and its basic functions are back online, but a lot of the power-ups seem to be fried. Those can be kind of unstable though and tend to break down more easily. I'm not really sure what to do about it."

The General nodded, recalling she had occasionally seemed to lose some of her suit's more powerful weapons. He had never been sure why, but he had always figured it had something to do with them being less stable than its base features. "How have you fixed them in the past?"

Samus shifted uncomfortably, not really wanting to answer that question. She often became evasive when people asked her for specifics on how her armor functioned. He had never been sure why. "You know… it's built to interface with different technologies so sometimes I'll just find stuff to upgrade it with when I go on missions."

"Do you have anything around here you can do that with?" he asked very calmly. He knew the Federation was not looking to contract with anyone for LV-426, but he still wanted to know where she stood. Just in case.

She shook her head. "If I had access to my ship I could refill the energy tanks and the ammo, and hopefully then it would have enough power to get the other parts online. I don't really have much of a power source here so any repairs I can do are taking a while."

"How did it recover so quickly in between Space Dragon battles back in Rosewood?" Adam was certain many of the systems on the suit had been damaged during her first Space Dragon battle, only for them to come back online in time for her to take out the other four Dragons in Bangor the next night. Unfortunately, she had been caught in a powerful explosion that had nearly totaled her power suit and had left her severely injured.

"There was still some energy in reserve then, and there was still a good bit of damage to it when I went into that second battle. The afloraltite explosion was so powerful I had to drain my back-up energy just to put up enough shielding to survive it. There was nothing left for it to heal with." She looked really uncomfortable as she cast her eyes down to study her boots. "It needs a biological source to draw energy from."

"You mean like a living organism?" Adam's brow wrinkled as he tried to piece together what she was saying.

Samus nodded. "Chozo technology is energy based. Normally, when I kill an enemy, I can absorb their energy and use it to fill my own tanks and heal. I don't have any enemies to kill here."

Ethical questions raced through Adam's mind. He and the Chozo had very different stances on the concept of energy-sucking bioweapons, but Samus knew that so he avoided belaboring the point. "So what have you been using as a fuel source?" He knew the answer but wanted the bounty hunter to confirm it.

"Well… myself."

A few things suddenly made more sense. "That's why you've been taking so long to heal." It was a statement, not a question, and he watched intently as the huntress nodded.

"There are a few recovery systems built in. If power bombs were still functional, I could use one of those to heal, although it's risky. There's another method, Concentration, that allows me to raise its energy through meditation, but it's at the expense of having to cut my own life energy. I've been trying to do some of that every few days."

The General sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not going to pretend to understand why you think that is a good idea. I suppose if you were alone on some desolate planet or stranded in Deep Space, it would make sense, but I live near an Army base, for goodness sake. If you need a station for charging a mech-suit, I can get you clearance."

"I know," Samus replied. "But charging my suit at an Army base means letting the Federation Army know I'm here, and no one knows I'm here, and I want to keep it that way. Besides, I'm mostly fine. My body is almost finished healing, and I have a few things like the morph ball and stuff back online."

Adam shook his head and leaned back into his chair. "I still don't like it. You shouldn't be draining yourself to power your suit like it's some kind of…" He stopped himself.

"Metroid," Samus finished, knowing what he was about to say. "You think I'm like some kind of metroid."

"Samus, I didn't mean it like—"

"Stop it." She held up both of her hands and looked him in the eyes. "That's exactly what you meant. Don't pretend. It's true, though. My power suit and the metroids were both created by the Chozo. The idea of absorbing another organism's life force is the basis of a lot of Chozo weaponry."

Adam didn't say anything. They simply sat for a while, locked eye to eye as she waited for him to respond. He knew so little about the Chozo and the metroids, but he knew Samus came from their world. He had never realized, however, that the metroids were basically her siblings given that they had both been "created" by the Chozo. Once again, he felt disgust at knowing how they had taken a human child and engineered her into something akin to a Metroid, only to leave her to fight for her life against them to atone for their mistakes. He knew he could never tell Samus because she would defend them to her grave, but he secretly despised the Chozo for what they had done to her.

"You're not going to say anything?" she challenged after a while.

The General simply shook his head. "You know yourself and your suit better than I do. If this is how you need to repair it, then I know you're going to do it."

The bounty hunter raised an eyebrow. "It doesn't bother you?"

"Samus," he said as his tone betrayed his exasperation, "you know my thoughts on bioweapons and technology. You know how I feel about your tendency to treat yourself as expendable. I don't feel the need to elaborate on anything. I don't like it, but I don't have the authority to tell you what to do. You're a very capable warrior, and I respect your decisions." His gray eyes looked tired, and Samus thought the lamp light really showed the gray speckled throughout his hair. Something was on his mind, although she was not sure what.

"Thank you," she replied very simply, deciding to bring that topic to a close. The best they could hope for would be to agree to disagree about the care and use of her armor. Instead, she decided to switch to a lighter topic. "Hector and I are going into town tomorrow."

"Oh?" Adam smiled, pleased with her change of subjects. "Any idea where you want to take him?"

"I'm not sure." Samus leaned back comfortably into the blue gingham couch cushions. It may have been old, but it was one of the softest, most comfortable things she had ever sat on. "I want to get him a present, I think. What do kids like?"

Adam shrugged. "I have no idea, but at this age, I think it's more of a question of what he likes specifically."

The bounty hunter sighed. "I have no idea. Maybe we could just grab a few beers or something."

"Lady," Adam laughed, "I don't know what you were doing at fifteen, but that's hardly age appropriate."

"Right." Samus rolled her eyes. "I forgot humans have laws about that."

Having fled Zebes at fourteen, Adam knew Samus had been homeless until she was put in the Army at sixteen. He also knew she had become something of a delinquent during that time. It occurred to him for the first time just how little she understood about teenage humans.

"He runs track," Adam said after a minute. "You know that. He'd probably like a nice pair of running shoes. He also likes animals from what I can tell. He and Jack used to have a dog. I don't know much else about the boy, but I'm sure you'll figure something out. Judging by how he looked while you two were out on the gazebo earlier, I'd say he'd just be happy to spend another day with you."

Samus smiled. The thought of spending the next day with her son excited her. Though she still did not feel like she was in any way suited to be a mother, she was thankful for the opportunity to try.

"Why don't you get some sleep, Lady?" Adam asked as he picked up his tablet and reading glasses again.

Groaning as she got up from her cozy little spot on the couch, the bounty hunter nodded and stood up. "Yeah… guess I should try to rest before tomorrow." She yawned and lightly stretched her back. "Goodnight, Adam," she said as she turned and walked toward her room.

"Good night, Lady," he called back to her as she headed out.

As much as he would have preferred to stay up and chat with her longer, he had been in the middle of some important reading when she had come in. Flipping on the tablet, he opened the reports he had been reading earlier. Hundreds of files filled the folders Admiral Dane had transferred to him earlier that day, and the more he read, the more concerned he became.

Although Chairman Keaton insisted on using actual military troops, something about the LV-426 situation told him that might not be sufficient. It was why he felt it imperative that Samus be at full strength with a functional power suit. He could feel his blood chill in his veins as he opened up the document he had been reading when the bounty hunter walked in. Though others had dismissed it as mere speculation, he had taken a special interest in the files regarding an unknown alien species described by a survivor of the incident aboard m-class starfreighter,  _Nostromo_.

The reports did not go into much detail and merely referred to the creature as "Xenomorph."

 


	7. Sixty-Five Credits

**Chapter 7: Sixty-Five Credits**

By the end of the week, Samus and Hector had made a habit of seeing each other after the boy got out of school. A few days, Samus had walked down to the high school and waited for her son by the fence, but after a while that had become problematic as people began to ask who she was. She had simply told them she was a friend of Jack's, but that did not stop school officials, other parents, and even some of the students from giving her strange looks. A six-foot tall woman with phazon scars on her face tended to stick out in a crowd.

Though she doubted anyone at the high school would put the pieces together and think she was Samus Aran, she still wanted to attract as little attention as possible. Besides, it was well known in the small community that Hector had grown up without a mother, and she did not want anyone starting rumors about who she might be. Instead, she and her son had begun meeting at different locations he liked so he could introduce her to them as they got to know each other. Despite their initial hesitance toward one another, they soon found they had a lot to talk about and really enjoyed each other's company. For Hector, it was a great relief to learn that not only had his mother not abandoned him, but also that she had wanted to meet him every bit as much as he had wanted to meet her. For Samus, it was as though the dreams she had never even dared to dream were coming true, and she loved every minute of it.

That Friday, Samus waited outside of a fried chicken restaurant,  _Los Pollos Hermanos_. She was dressed in her usual jeans, combat boots, and leather jacket, but her hair was up in a ponytail and she wasn't wearing make-up. The poster for the restaurant behind her featured two clothed, anthropomorphic chickens standing back to back over a tag-line that read " _Los Pollos Hermanos, where something delicious is always cooking._ " The image made Samus's skin crawl. The cartoony birds in the picture were obviously not Chozo, but they were similar enough that the thought of people cooking them made her uncomfortable. It was a relief when she finally saw her son walking down the block toward her. Instead of waiting, she walked forward to greet him and put as much distance between herself and the creepy chickens as possible.

As the two met, they shared a wide embrace and stood hugging each other for a few moments as a few nearby people turned to stare.

"Hey, Samus," Hector said quietly as he hugged his mother. He still was not comfortable calling her anything other than her first name, but he also did not want anyone to hear.

"Hello, Spawn," the bounty hunter replied as the two pulled back from their embrace. "How was school?"

"Eh." The boy shrugged as they walked past the chicken poster. He was still wearing his school uniform, a button down shirt and tie with a pair of grey slacks. "You wanna stop in there and grab a bite?"

"No!" Samus replied, a bit too harshly, earning herself an eyebrow raise from her son. A bit embarrassed, she hastily added, "I'm not really a huge fan of poultry."

"Okay then. I guess we can always get something later."

The boy kept walking, obviously with somewhere in mind, although Samus did not know where. She was just happy to be getting some time with her son in between missions, regardless of where they went.

"You're a real animal-lover, right?" he asked after a few minutes, much to Samus's surprise.

"What makes you say that?"

Hector laughed and grinned at his mother. "You told me yesterday that you took time out of escaping from an exploding planet to rescue some bird and monkey things. And you saved that little jellyfish sucker thing."

"Heh." The bounty hunter laughed as she recalled telling him about her missions to Zebes and SR-388. While the rescue of the baby Metroid was common knowledge amongst the Federation, not too many people knew about the etecoons and dachora. "I guess I can see how you might get that impression." Despite being mostly human herself, Samus had always felt most comfortable around animal-like creatures that didn't speak. They understood one another on basic levels, and she felt less on-guard around them than her own species.

"Well," the boy continued as they walked, "my dad and I have been talking about getting a puppy. He said I could go to the shelter and pick one out. I figured maybe we could do that today. What do you think?"

The bounty hunter perked up and grinned. She had never had a dog before, but she had always been a fan of the big friendly creatures. She found them easy to understand and their goofy antics amusing. "I think that's a great idea!"

The pair continued their walk across town to the neighborhood animal shelter. It was not too far off, and it was the only one in the small town.

"I think my dad wants something small," Hector said as they went into the reception area. The woman at the front desk smiled and waved to him and Samus.

"Welcome!" she greeted them as she stepped out from behind her desk. She was a short, tan woman with short black hair. She was wearing khaki pants and a red polo shirt with the name of the shelter embroidered on the chest. "My name is Charlaine. What can I help you two with this evening?"

"We want a dog," Samus replied a bit too bluntly. She was not trying to be rude, but she was having a hard time curbing her enthusiasm and wanted to get to the point. "For the boy, I mean. We're here to get him a dog."

"Hi," Hector waved awkwardly to the woman. It was one of those moments he was acutely aware he had an alien for a mother.

"Ah… okay." Charlaine looked between Samus and the boy. "So you and your son are looking to meet our dogs today and possibly adopt one?"

"He's not my—" Samus paused, unsure how to explain her relationship to the boy. He was her son, true, but she did not want anyone to know about that. "I'm his aunt… and he's dating my niece. But… um, they aren't related. It's a not-biological thing. Her father and I were in the Federation Army together, sort of."

"I see…" Charlaine looked over to Hector who just shrugged. "Well, you could have fooled me," the young woman laughed. "You two look so much alike I would have sworn he was your son! What are your names, anyway?"

"I'm Rhonda," Samus replied, having already chosen an alias well in advance. "Rhonda Sinclaire. This is Hector."

"Well, it's very nice to meet both of you." Charlaine walked over to a door and unlocked it so Samus and Hector could go in. "Our dogs and puppies are all in this area. Go ahead and pick out a new friend!"

As soon as they stepped into the dog area, the hallway erupted into a cacophony of barking and the rattling of steel kennels. Huge dog crates lined the walls on either side of Samus and Hector and furry, friendly creatures bounced up and down, tails wagging faster than they could see them. Though it was a little overwhelming to be surrounded by so many loud animals, Samus could not help but grin and feel excited. She really loved animals, and though her experience with Earth animals was limited, she had met plenty of dogs on other human planets.

"Hey!" Hector called out to her from further down the hallway as he knelt beside one kennel. "Check this one out!"

Samus walked over to look at the tiny dog that had come up to the bars and sniffed her son's hands. It was a dainty little black and white creature with ears that perked straight up. Its long hair made its ears look almost like wings.

"That's a papillon," Samus said as she knelt down and studied the dog. "I've seen these before. She's a cute one."

"I really like her," Hector said as he reached through and scratched the little creature's head. "I think I want to get her."

"She's a good choice," Charlaine said as she walked toward them from down the hall. "We just got her in the other day, but she's spayed and has all her shots. Her owner unfortunately discovered he was allergic to her, but he said she's a great dog."

"We'll take this one," Samus said. "How much does she cost?"

"Er… she's not really an item for sale. There's a sixty-five credit adoption fee though." The young woman unlocked the kennel and the little dog trotted out to meet Hector, who scooped her up in his arms. The tiny dog promptly began licking his face. "You seem to be a natural with animals, kid."

"Heh…" Hector's nose twitched as the dog's tongue tickled his face. "I've had dogs since I was born."

Samus smiled at her son as he laughed and held his new friend. It made her so happy to see him happy and to know she was finally sharing a moment like this with her son. Emotion welled up in her chest as it dawned on her once more that she had never thought she would live to see this sort of thing. She discreetly excused herself and began walking further down the dog hall. She looked at the other pups and smiled, trying to distract herself from the bittersweet joy that threatened to overwhelm her. At the end of the hall, however, one dog stood out to her.

It was definitely one of the larger kennels, and the door was marked with a red tag. Curious, the bounty hunter walked over to see why. Its occupant was a large brown wolf-looking dog. Its coat was shaggy, and one side of its snout was scarred up. One of its pointed ears looked bitten and torn. Of all the dogs, it was the only one that did not bark, but instead it stood still and stared at Samus with vigilant eyes.

"What's up with this dog?" Samus called down to Charlaine who was still over with Hector and the papillon.

"Hmmm?" The woman looked surprised as she walked over to the red-tagged crate and noted the big wolfy dog. "Oh, that one. He was a stray someone brought in after they found him on their land trying to eat their ducks. We're not really super certain he's a full dog, but he's been here for six months already."

"What's the red tag for?" Samus asked, though she was certain she already knew the answer.

"Well, that dog's been here for a very long time, and he doesn't have the nicest temperament. No one has shown any interest in him, and the shelter is already at capacity. Unfortunately, we'll be putting him to sleep later on this evening."

"So you're just killing him?" Samus's voice got a little too loud as she glared at the woman. "Just for being a reject?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Sinclaire," Charlaine replied very calmly. "Unfortunately, we have limited funding and limited capacity. If no one adopts him, we can't afford to keep him, and we can't just turn him loose."

Samus looked back at the scruffy, tough looking dog, who stared right back at her. "I'm sorry no one wants you, Reject Dog."

"He'd be hard to train, as feral as he is," Charlaine continued, noting the dark phazon scars around the mercenary's right eye. "He's a fighter. It would take a special kind of person to deal with him, I think."

Samus looked over back at Charlaine. "Sixty-five credits?"

"That's the adoption fee."

Samus looked over at Hector holding the little papillon and the back at the wolf-dog. "I'll take both."

"Um… Rhonda," Hector said hesitantly, "I don't think my dad would be okay with that. He said only to get a small—"

Samus glared at her son. "This one isn't for you."

"Ah…" He was taken aback and didn't know what to say as he faced the bounty hunter's stern glare for the first time.

"All right then," Charlaine unlocked the big kennel and opened the door, but the big dog backed away, flattening his ears and showing his teeth in an aggressive manner.

"I'll do it," Samus said, snatching the rope lead away from the other woman. Unafraid of an aggressive dog, the bounty hunter strode into the kennel and looked sternly at the creature. "Look you, I'm saving your ass so you better not even think of biting me."

The dog regarded her curiously, but made no move to escape or attack as she slipped the soft rope lead over his head and tied it off.

"Good, Reject Dog." Samus knelt down beside the animal and scratched his ears playfully. "You get to live to sniff another day."

The dog didn't give her playful kisses or wag his tail the way Hector's papillon did, but he regarded her with a sort of cautious respect, one fighter to another.

As they made their way back to the front desk, Hector carrying his papillon and Samus walking her dog on a leash, the boy could not help but stare at the creature his mother had chosen. He was not sure how someone as obsessively organized as General Malkovich would take having something like that in his home. But that was not his problem, he reasoned. And he may have been her son, but he had no interest in trying to argue with Samus Aran.

"I'll need to see your ID," Charlaine said as Samus took out her wallet to pay her. "The boy is obviously underage, so I'll have to get you to fill out some paperwork for both dogs."

"Why do you need my ID?" Samus asked coldly as the big dog sat down beside her and looked about his surroundings. "How about I pay you cash, and we skip that part?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Sinclaire. I'm afraid I can't do that. It's the law that I have to check your ID to make sure you are of legal age and run a background check to make sure you don't have any animal cruelty charges against you."

Samus thought about it for a moment and handed the woman her Galactic Federation Intergalactic Pilot's License. The woman took the card, and her eyes widened as she read the name and then looked over to Samus.

"You are—"

"Yes," Samus replied icily. "I am. And if you tell anyone, I will know. So it is in your best interest not to let anyone know I was here."

"Oh… O-of course." She scanned Samus's license into the computer and handed it back to her along with two sets of adoption forms. Hector stood to the side and watched as his mother filled out the forms and paid the adoption fees.

After they left the store, Samus decided to walk Hector back to his house. It was getting late, even if it was not dark yet, and she hated the thought of the boy walking home alone. Realistically, she knew he would be all right by himself, but she wanted to steal every moment with him that she could. On the way to his home, they stopped only at a pet store to get two sets of collars and leashes for their new friends.

"I'm surprised you got that dog," Hector said after they had been walking for a while.

"What's so surprising?" Samus asked, looking at her son who was still carrying his new papillon. "They were going to kill him."

"I don't know. I guess it just seems a little irresponsible to me. You don't have a house or anything… at least as far as I know." He realized just how little he knew of his mother's life outside of the past week and wondered what else he didn't know about.

"I don't think it's irresponsible to save a life," the bounty hunter replied as she stroked the large dog's head. For such a wild creature, he behaved surprisingly well on the leash as if he had a real respect for the bounty hunter, and Hector wondered if his mother's alien blood might have something to do with it.

When they arrived at Hector and Jack's house, Samus gave her son a hug good bye before heading back to Adam's. She did not want to go inside and see Jack. It was not that she had anything against her child's father, but she knew he would want to strike up a conversation, and she really just wanted to get home and figure out what to do with the dog she had impulsively adopted.

Truth be told, she was not actually sure what to do with the animal. She just knew she had not wanted the dog to die.

As she approached Adam's house, she noticed he was outside standing next to a woman. As she got closer, she realized she recognized the woman beside her, and she felt her breath catch in her throat before her heart rate sped up. Picking up her pace, she waved to the two of them and walked over.

"Good evening, Lady," Adam said with a smile and a glance at the tough-looking dog. "Interesting day, I take it?"

Samus grinned. "You have no idea."

"Hello, Samus!" the other woman greeted her with a smile, and Samus realized how happy she was to see her.

"Hello, Elisa," the bounty hunter replied, not realizing how much she had missed this woman until she was standing before her.

Officer Elisa Rodriguez was part of the Rosewood police force Samus had worked with on her last mission. She had olive-toned skin, thick dark hair in a ponytail, and large, expressive brown eyes. She stood about a foot shorter than the bounty hunter, but she was curvy and upbeat, and Samus had enjoyed the little time the two of them had been able to spend together before she had come out here to meet Hector. Now she had on a lavender blouse and a pair of blue jeans. She was wearing a pair of heeled pumps that matched her blouse.

"Surprised to see me?" the police officer asked with the slightest hint of an accent. "I had this weekend off and thought you might like it if I came for a visit."

"She called me," Adam said in his even tone. "I told her where we were and figured you two would enjoy visiting together."

Samus smiled. She was certainly happy to see Elisa, but the police officer did not know she had a child, much less that she was here visiting with her son. The thought of a stranger possibly finding out about that normally terrified her, but in this case, she found herself excited for the other woman's presence.

"By the way, Lady," Adam said, looking back down at the dog as it glared at him and emitted a low growl, "who is your new friend?"

"Oh… heh." Samus glanced between the dog and the General. "He's some Reject Dog they were going to kill at the shelter so I bought him instead."

"I see." Adam continued looking at the scarred up, angry canine. "And what are you planning to do with this dog?"

"Um… keep him, I guess."

Adam looked at the bounty hunter and raised an eyebrow. "And I assume you figured I would be all right with having a dog here?"

Samus shrugged. "You're always getting onto me about lowering my blood pressure, and pets are supposed to help with that."

"I see," he repeated, looking between Samus and the dog.

"If you want, I don't mind sleeping outside with him."

Adam shook his head with an exasperated sigh. "You know I would never want you to do that." He looked at the shaggy brown dog again, trying to figure out much it could shed within a week and how much extra vacuuming it would take to keep the house clean if the walking mop moved in for a while. "And what is your new friend's name?"

Samus turned to look down at the dog as well, and he looked up at her quietly. "I don't know. He hasn't told me yet. I've just been calling him Reject Dog."

"Samus…" Adam sighed again and rubbed his forehead as he looked down. "You can't just call him Reject Dog. I don't want an animal in my house to begin with, but I won't have one staying here with a name like that."

"Sooo…" Samus grinned at her friend impishly as she knelt down beside the dog and began scratching behind his ears. "If I name him, I get to keep him here?"

 


	8. Scars

**Chapter 8: Scars**

"So… That movie." Elisa looked over at Samus as they walked along the sidewalk of one of the main roads. "It was… interesting."

"Um, yeah," the bounty hunter replied hesitantly. "That's one way of putting it." They had just gotten out of the movie theater, and now Samus strolled down the road with Elisa on one side and the Reject Dog on a leash on the other. It was a clear night, a bit warmer than it had been lately, and Samus was glad she had opted to wear her leather jacket as opposed to her heavy green coat. Of course, there were reasons other than the weather that had prompted her to wear the jacket, and her companion had certainly noticed.

"Well, now we know." Elisa laughed. " _Rochelle, Rochelle_  is not all its cracked up to be. I'm pretty sure the only thing that movie had going for it was all the nudity."

Samus smiled. She enjoyed the sound of the other woman's laughter. It had been a surprise to her when she had met up with Elisa outside of Adam's house earlier that evening, but she had been excited to find out the officer had taken a long weekend to travel out to where she was staying. When they had parted ways back at Blackacre, she had promised Elisa the two of them would go out for dinner and a movie when they saw each other again. Of course, she had not expected to see her so soon.

"It was still better than  _The English Patient_ ," Samus said with a smile, "although I think we really should have gone to see  _Prognosis Negative_  or  _The Other Side of Darkness_."

"Eh, I heard those two were kind of depressing," Elisa replied as they continued walking. "Anyway, where do you think we should go for dinner?"

"Dinner this late?"

"You promised me dinner, remember?"

"I suppose I did." Samus was not sure how many restaurants the town had or which ones would still be open at this hour, but she was glad to have the opportunity to spend more time with Elisa. She was one of the few people the bounty hunter actually felt comfortable being around. "There's a little French place over on Park. They have outdoor seating, and I don't think they mind dogs."

As if he understood what Samus said, the Reject Dog looked up at her and tilted his head. For a dog the shelter had labeled as feral, he was surprisingly good at walking on a leash and very well behaved in public. Samus suspected that he had once had an owner and a home. She knew feral animals, and this creature clearly had not been wild all of his life. Something must have happened that landed him out on the street.

Elisa agreed with Samus's suggestion, and the three made their way down to the French café and sat themselves outside. Samus chose a corner with her back to a wall so she could see the courtyard clearly, something Elisa had fully expected her to do. The dog lay down beside Samus, putting himself between her and anyone who might approach. Despite his behavior, Samus could tell he was fully on guard. She could also tell the dog somehow knew she had saved his life earlier, and he seemed to be almost protective of her. He had lay in a similarly defensive way in the movie theater, as though he understood her anxiety in crowded public spaces.

"He seems to really like you," Elisa said, looking up from her menu and noting the way the animal positioned himself beside Samus. "Almost seems like he'd make a good service dog."

"A what?" Samus looked up, startled, and stared at the other woman. "Service dog for what?"

"You know…" Elisa suddenly looked unsure and a little embarrassed. "I mean, a lot of veterans keep service animals to help them out. It's not uncommon."

"You think I need that?" Samus's tone had taken on a note of irritation.

"I don't know if you need something like that," Elisa replied calmly, realizing she had accidently set foot in dangerous territory. "I'm just saying, a lot of soldiers benefit from having animals who are trained to help with PTSD."

The bounty hunter's face turned red as she looked down at her menu. She did not seem angry so much as embarrassed, and Elisa mentally chastised herself for not realizing what a sensitive topic her condition was for Samus.

"You know about that?" the mercenary finally asked after a minute. "Did Adam tell you?"

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Samus. And no, Adam didn't tell me." The officer placed her hand on top of Samus's as their eyes met. "I'm not being critical of you, and I didn't mean anything by it. I just thought your dog seems particularly in tune with what bothers you and he could be helpful at easing some of your… anxieties."

Though she did not say anything, Elisa thought back to the first day she had met Samus. They had been having coffee together and were leaving when some assassins and a Space Dragon had attacked. Samus had protected her and fought valiantly, but by the time they had both made it back to Blackacre, the bounty hunter had gone into a nasty flashback. Elisa was not sure what she had flashed back to, but she had thought everything was burning around them and that people were dying. Fortunately, General Malkovich had been able to talk her down from it, but that was when Elisa had realized Samus suffered from a rather nasty case of post-traumatic stress. She had not realized, however, how much Samus hated people to know or talk about her condition.

When the bounty hunter continued to look uncomfortable for several minutes, Elisa decided she needed to change the conversation's topic. "Speaking of the dog," she said with a grin, "We can't keep just calling him Reject. He needs a real name. Any ideas yet?"

Samus thought for a moment as she keyed her dinner order into the holoscreen on the table. Eventually, she looked down at the dog and made a strange, birdlike sound Elisa had not realized could come from a human.

The officer looked at Samus in confusion as the bounty hunter cast her gaze back over to the other woman. "Um… excuse me?" Elisa asked after a moment.

Samus looked at her and repeated the birdlike sound. "That's his name."

"Was that a… word?"

The bounty hunter laughed, all signs of her earlier tension disappearing. "It's a word in Chozo. It's a type of ancient warrior… one who fired projectiles from a crude, manual weapon. I think in Human, it's what you might have referred to as an archer."

"Archer," Elisa repeated. "Do you mind if I just call him that?" She looked at the scruffy brown dog. "I don't think I can even make that other sound."

Samus laughed again and nodded. "Yes, we can call him Archer. I don't expect you or anyone else to be able to speak Chozo." She smiled at the dog, who looked back up at her silently. He didn't perk his ears or wag his tail, but she knew he understood. "I guess if I've given him a name, he's actually mine now."

The two women enjoyed their meal in peace. It was late enough that most patrons had gone home for the night, so they had the courtyard mostly to themselves. Every now and then a server would come by to check on how they were doing or refill their drinks. At one point, Samus ordered a bottle of wine for the table, and they finished it before dessert, the bounty hunter drinking most of it.

When they finished, Samus insisted on paying the bill and walking Elisa back to her motel. While she was not drunk by any means, the wine had left the hunter warm, relaxed, and slightly buzzed, and she did not mind it. For once, she allowed herself to slip into a slightly lower guard as she and Elisa strolled together down the town's quiet streets, lit with old-fashioned lampposts on either side. Distant stars dotted the dark sky, and Samus felt Elisa's hand slip into hers as they walked closer together. The human touch, however small it may have been, did a lot to ease her edge, and she realized how truly starved she had been for any physical affection.

When they made it to Elisa's motel room, Samus found herself wishing the night had not ended so soon. Perhaps it was some combination of the wine and the cool night air, but she could feel long discarded desires stirring within her as her eyes met those of the curvy young police officer.

"Would you like to come in?" Elisa asked, much to the bounty hunter's surprise. She tapped her room key onto the lock, and the door opened to reveal the modest motel room. There was a table with a couple of chairs, a few lamps, and a queen-sized bed made up with an outdated comforter set.

"It's late," Samus replied reluctantly, realizing she still held the officer's hand. "Besides, I have a dog now and really should get him back to Adam's."

Slipping her hand out of Samus's grasp, Elisa laid her fingers lightly on the mercenary's arm. "But Adam told you not to bring the dog back until you gave him a name, remember?"

"I already named him back at the café. You were there."

Elisa grinned mischievously as she gently pulled the hunter's arm toward the door. "Adam doesn't need to know that."

Samus stared at the other woman for a long moment before she allowed herself to be pulled into the room. She let go of Archer's leash as Elisa closed the door behind them. Within moments, any signs of passivity the bounty hunter had shown vanished as she ran one hand through Elisa's long dark hair and placed the other on the small of her back. As the shorter woman wrapped her arms around the bounty hunter's neck, Samus pulled her into a deep, passionate kiss. Her mouth explored hers ravenously as she ran her hands down the woman's curves and savored ever second of the contact. It had been a very long time since she had known a woman intimately, and she had not realized how thoroughly starved that side of her was. And Elisa returned her passion, her hands unzipping Samus's jacket as she led them closer to the bed.

The bounty hunter cast the garment off as Elisa laid down on the bed, her back flat on the mattress as Samus climbed over her. Gently, she placed one hand under the officer's back and lifted her higher onto the bed as she lowered her head and streamed kisses down her neck and onto her chest. As the mercenary kissed her exposed throat, Elisa fumbled with Samus's black tank top, trying to remove it without interrupting. The bounty hunter, on the other hand, had since abandoned any pretense of civility and threw it off before actively tearing off the officer's lavender blouse. As she heard it rip and freed herself from its remains, Elisa stared up at the woman before her.

There had always been something wild about Samus, be it the feral look in her eyes or the way she always seemed to be sizing up a room. But as she towered over Elisa and began furiously kissing her exposed chest, the officer discovered an entirely new side to the normally stoic hunter. Samus was a tough looking woman with all of her clothes on, but as she stared at her in only jeans and a brassiere, Elisa realized how heavily muscled the mercenary was. And how covered in scars her body was.

An odd, heavy chain rested around the hunter's neck, and hanging from it was an odd circular disk with a lightning bolt running through it. It seemed to be a terribly heavy piece of jewelry, but as Elisa grabbed it and tried to find a clasp to undo it, Samus recoiled from her touch. She pulled back entirely from Elisa's body and stared at her with a new kind of wild look in her eyes, a fight or flight response.

For a moment, Elisa was very still, unsure what to do and not certain Samus even recognized who she was. After a bit, though, the bounty hunter blinked and seemed to regain her composure in part, although she was visibly shaking.

"I-I'm sorry," the hunter stammered out as she stood up.

"Wait." Elisa sat up and gently took Samus's hand, leading her back onto the bed. "It's ok. Come back on here with me."

The visibly shaken Samus looked reluctant but gave in and laid down beside Elisa on the bed. The officer used it as an opportunity to snuggle up to the mercenary's chest and place both of her hands over the tall woman's heart. She could feel Samus's arms wrap around her and pull her tightly into an embrace.

"I'm sorry," the hunter repeated, still trembling from her adrenaline spike.

"It's alright," the officer said softly, planting a kiss just above Samus's breasts. "You had an involuntary reaction. It's ok. I'm sorry for touching your necklace. I should have asked. I just thought it looked heavy and you might want to take it off."

Samus still held Elisa, but she pushed her back a few inches so they could see each other's faces. "It doesn't come off."

Elisa stared thoughtfully at the bounty hunter, wondering what sort of device it could possibly be. She had never seen anything like it before, but she decided to hold off on questions until it was a better time. Instead, she studied the hunter's face as they lay beside one another. She noted the dark scarring around her right eye and the way it ran down to her neck and faded away. She noted another long scar across the mercenary's neck, as if someone had once attempted to slash her throat.

Her chest was littered with other scars, some larger than others. Some looked like cuts or gun shot wounds while others looked like she had been burned in some capacity. It was odd to see Samus so exposed in such a way, and for the first time, she felt like she was getting an idea of the physical abuse the bounty hunter had endured over the years.

Subconsciously, her fingers began tracing the scars as Samus watched her silently. Her body tensed at first at the touch, but her tension slowly faded as Elisa continued to run her fingers along her scarred skin. It was a gentle, almost loving touch, different than the passion they had experienced earlier. And as Elisa gently kissed her where she had been shot earlier that month, she suddenly felt extremely vulnerable despite her strength.

"I can stop," Elisa said when she felt her lover's body tense. She looked up at Samus.

The bounty hunter was silent for a moment, but she shook her head.

Elisa returned to gently kissing Samus's exposed chest and neck. She could feel the hunter tense each time her lips ran over one of her scars, but she could also feel the hunter progressively relaxing each time it happened. Before long, she could no longer feel Samus tensing at her touch.

She smiled at the bounty hunter as they lay side by side, and as she leaned in to kiss her lips, she could feel Samus pulling her closer once more. They held each other and savored one another's lips as they felt the passion returning between them. And Elisa was careful this time to watch for any more landmines. True to her nature, Samus climbed back on top as they continued their intimacy. As dominant of a lover as she was, however, the mercenary had displayed how truly vulnerable she was in this moment, and Elisa did her best to respect that.

There was, however, a new openness to the way Samus made love to Elisa, and she realized that handling the brief episode had instilled a new trust between them. There was less hesitance to the way the hunter moved along her body.

And as their lips met once more in a fiery passion, both women knew that they would not be getting much sleep at all that night.

 


	9. Reality

**Chapter 9: Reality**

When Samus awoke, she was acutely aware of the warm body in her arms. Even in her half-sleeping haze, she knew that whoever she held was non-threatening, and as she felt the rising and falling of the woman's chest, she tried her best to bring her brain from its foggy state and recall where she was and who she was with. It was not that anything had happened the night before to make her forget, but rather that she frequently woke up disoriented and needed to take a moment to focus herself.

Looking down at the dark-hair woman she held, she noticed her soft, warm breath against her bare chest and the steady beating of her heart. It did not take long for Samus to realize both she and the other woman were naked, their bodies entangled with one another beneath the sheets of a motel bed. As she ran her hand through the woman's hair and revealed her face, memories of the night before came flooding back, and she soon had the wherewithal to realize what was going on.

She had slept with Officer Elisa Rodriguez.

Fondly recalling their movie date, dinner, and eventual love-making, Samus smiled as she pulled the other woman closer to her chest. It had been a very long time since she had been with anyone in that capacity, and while she was a bit surprised how quickly she had moved with Elisa, she was glad she had made that choice. After all, with a bounty on her head larger than the GDP of some planets, she knew better than anyone how fleeting life could be. She savored the peaceful moment, hugging her companion close as she slept.

After a few minutes, Elisa's eyes fluttered open, and she came to awareness much more quickly than Samus had. Looking up at the mercenary, she smiled before nestling herself into her lover's bare chest.

"Good morning!" the officer said cheerfully, if not a little groggily.

"Good morning," Samus replied, keeping her voice soft so as not to interrupt the quiet atmosphere. Elisa's body was so warm against hers, it was a pleasant change from the chill of most mornings. "Sleep well?"

Elisa nodded, her eyes closed as she rested against Samus. "You're surprisingly comfortable."

"Am I?" The bounty hunter chuckled as she ran a hand through her lover's hair. "You would be the first to think that."

As though it could sense how badly she wanted to stay in bed, Samus's phone began to ring from across the room. Instinctively trying to touch her earpiece and realizing she was not wearing it, Samus groaned as she untangled herself from the covers and got out of bed. She stumbled gracelessly across the room to pick up the phone and silence its incessant ringing.

"Hello?" she answered with a yawn, not bothering to check the caller ID.

"I'm speaking with Samus Aran, I presume?"

Samus's eyes snapped open at the sound of the deep, slightly gravely voice she knew could only belong to one person. "Chairman Keaton?" Her voice was instantly respectful and on alert as she looked at her caller ID to confirm. "How can I help you, Sir?" Elisa sat up and looked over, curious at the change in the bounty hunter's tone.

"Samus, I must speak with you on matters of urgent importance. How soon can you make that happen?"

"I can come out as soon as you need me to." Samus knew better than anyone not to keep Keaton waiting. The small, wrinkly green alien was the Chairman of the Galactic Federation, the highest position available in government. When she contracted for large missions for the Federation, she often contracted with the Chairman directly. "You want me to come to the Capitol on Daiban?"

"Yes," he replied very matter-of-factly. "What planet are you on currently?"

"Currently, I'm on Earth, but my ship is over at Aliehs-III, so I'm a couple of days out by mass transit."

"Don't worry about that. I'll send transit to you. Just send me your coordinates. How does Monday sound?"

Samus thought for a minute, trying to remember what day of the week it was. She had never really paid much attention to that, given that she didn't work a regular 9-to-5. She quickly remembered it was Saturday morning. "Monday sounds fine. I should be able to tie up my loose ends by then. Anything you can tell me about what this is in regard to, Sir?"

"I'd rather not say over the phone. I'll send for your transport, and then you can come here. I'd rather you not discuss this with anyone, although I have no qualms with General Malkovich knowing as it concerns him as well."

"Understood."

"Very well," he replied. "Send your coordinates, and I'll send you a time and place."

"Affirmative."

"Take care, Samus. I'm not sure if you realize how many enemies you've managed to make recently." With that rather unsettling piece of cryptic information, the Chairman disconnected.

Samus placed her phone back on the table. It seemed her impromptu vacation was coming to an end. Unconsciously, she stretched and flexed her right arm, the one she had broken in combat a few weeks before. It felt considerably stronger than it had earlier in the week, and though Adam and her doctor had thought otherwise, she was fairly certain it was battle-ready. That would be critical if Keaton were assigning her to a new mission. She was less certain about the damage to her lungs, but her power suit provided clean air and could sustain her despite that.

Though her mind began to race through her usual pre-mission checklists, she did not have her usual enthusiasm for it. She knew she could be called to return to battle at any time, but she had hoped it would not be so soon. It had only been a week since she had met her son, and there were still so many more things she wanted to do… but duty called. And her duty always came first.

"Samus?"

Shaking herself out of her thoughts and back into the present time, Samus looked over to where Elisa sat up on the bed. She was slightly embarrassed to have forgotten the two of them were still naked or even that the other woman was present at all. Memories of the night before and waking up with Elisa in her arms suddenly felt far away as the harsh reality of her job rushed up to meet her.

"What's going on?" the officer asked, looking concerned.

The mercenary simply shook her head. "I'm not sure. I need to fly out to Daiban in a couple of days though." Suddenly self-conscious, Samus grabbed up her fallen garments from the night before and hastily began putting them on. From the corner of the room, Archer looked over to her, ears perked up on alert.

Taking her cue, Elisa also jumped out of bed and began dressing, pausing a moment to evaluate the damage Samus had done to the lavender blouse she had torn off. Recognizing a lost cause when she saw one, Elisa threw it over to the trash.

Neither said anything for a while as the women gathered up their things.

"This was a shorter reunion than I was expecting," Elisa said after a while, looking tentatively over toward Samus, who paused and stared over at the large brown dog in the corner.

"This was just me being stupid and thinking I could live as a human for a while," the hunter replied somberly as a million things raced through her head.

"Hmm?" Elisa looked over to her friend. "You can still come back to visit though, can't you?"

Samus raised her eyebrows, still sort of staring off at nothing. "Maybe. Depends what they want from me this time."

"Do you think they're sending you on another mission?" Elisa asked, walking over and placing a hand on Samus's arm.

But the bounty hunter shrugged off her lover's touch and turned toward the door. "I should be getting out of here."

Elisa just stayed still and looked at her, feeling simultaneously rejected by and concerned about the mercenary. She had seen her face take on that look before, and things never ended well when that happened.

"If you need to leave," she said quietly after a moment, "I won't stand in your way. I know who you are and what you have to do."

Samus just looked back at the officer and nodded.

Within moments it was as though neither she nor the dog had ever been to Elisa's room.

* * *

It did not take Samus long to walk back to Adam's house, particularly given how fast her walking pace was when she did not have to worry about anyone keeping up. Archer did not slow her down, although he practically had to run at points, and her almost super human speed drew some attention from onlookers. Samus ignored them. He semi-human status was hardly a secret, and if they wanted to judge her for it, it was none of her business.

She opened the front door and slipped off her boots in the foyer before heading into the kitchen. It was usually a safe bet that someone would be in there, and sure enough she found Marza. However, the normally active woman was not cooking or doing anything else of the sort. Rather, she was sitting alone at the kitchen table, looking uncharacteristically somber. When she saw Samus come in, she looked up and smiled, but the bounty hunter noticed a certain blotchiness to her eyes.

"Hello, Sam," she greeted the bounty hunter with a cheerfulness that did not hint at whatever she had been feeling when Samus walked in. "Did you and Elisa have a good night?"

"Hello, Marza. Yes, we did. It was actually a very nice night." She looked around and thought about pouring herself a cup of coffee but decided against it. "Is Adam around?"

"He's in his office. Again." Her tone was flatter than usual, and she appeared distraught. "I'm sure he'll talk to you if you need him though."

Interpersonal conflicts were not Samus's forte, but she could sense how upset Marza was and suspected it had to do with her husband's constant absence. This was not the first time they had these sorts of issues. The General had a tendency to withdraw from his family for much longer periods of time than his job actually demanded of him, and it wore on his relationship with them.

She was not sure she'd be able to do any good, but Samus took a seat across the table from Marza. "You want to talk about it?" the bounty hunter asked.

Marza shook her head and tried to smile, but it was a sad smile. "I don't know what else there is to say. He's never home anymore, and even when he is home, it's like he isn't here. I try to be understanding, but it's just not something I can understand. Doesn't he want to spend time with his girls? I miss my husband, and they miss their father."

Samus nodded. She didn't really know what to say to that. There were plenty of reasons why she had never married and had not been able to hold down any kind of relationship in years. "I can kind of understand what he's going through," she said after a moment. "It took me fifteen years to be able to come out and meet my son. I know it's not the same, but I think I can relate to him in a way."

"What is it, Sam?" Marza's tone was practically pleading as she stared at the bounty hunter. "Why is he like this?"

"If I had to guess, it's probably out of fear of losing you three. Adam's seen things. If he's like me, he sees them when he doesn't want to. I've never had anyone close to me who wasn't also some kind of warrior. I've never lived outside of that, but you and the girls aren't from that world. It's hard for some people to separate that, you know?"

Marza shook her head. "I'm afraid I don't know. I just think, shouldn't he be happy to get away from all that when he's home? Can't he relax?"

"I don't know if I'm explaining this right." Samus ran a hand nervously through her hair. "Emotions aren't my strong suit. It's just that… for me anyway, when I'm away from battle, I'm never actually away from it. That's where my mind lives. It causes issues… different than what Adam feels, but not super different. I live alone. I don't have a family. Due, in no small part, to the fact that I have a hard time getting close to people. People die. I've known a lot of that. I can't deal with anymore of that. He can't deal with the thought of losing you and the girls, so he can't be around you. Does that make any sense?"

"Makes about as much sense as anything else." Marza sighed and sat back in her chair. "I'm glad he's always had you, Sam. You seem to be the one person who gets this part of him. He doesn't share that world with anyone else."

Samus didn't know what to say to that and just shrugged. "I'm from that world." The bounty hunter shifted uncomfortably for a little while as a tense silence hung over the kitchen. After a few minutes, she got up and turned on the coffee pot. "I'll go try to talk to him. Figure he'll respond better if I bring coffee with me."

Marza looked up and nodded. She smiled a bit more genuinely. "I think that's a good idea."

When Samus finished making coffee for herself and Adam, she carried it over to his office and awkwardly knocked on the door while attempting not to spill any of it. After a few moments, the General opened the door and looked her over raising his eyebrows.

"You were out late," he said gruffly as he looked her up and down.

"You could say that," the bounty hunter replied with a grin as she stepped inside. "But I come bearing caffeine, so I hope that makes up for it."

A hint of a smile passed over his face as Samus handed him the steaming mug. "It does."

The mercenary took a seat across the desk from the General's brown leather chair as Archer trotted in and sat beside her. The tough-looking dog kept his eyes on Adam as he sat down in his chair and faced Samus.

"Did you have a good night at least?" he asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

Samus nodded. "A very good night actually. The best I've had in a long time."

"You know, Elisa called me a little while ago. She said you left very suddenly, and she seemed a little distraught."

With a cringe, Samus leaned onto the desk and ran a hand through her hair. "I feel really bad about that, but I got a call from Chairman Keaton. He's requesting my presence, and my mind is kind of racing."

"When are you leaving for Daiban?" His tone was calm and even as always. To the casual observer, he may have sounded uninterested but Samus knew otherwise.

"Monday morning. I feel bad about leaving Elisa. I really didn't want to, but it was taking everything I had not to just crawl back into bed with her, you know?"

Adam raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You and Elisa?"

"Oh… heh. Yeah." Samus's face flushed slightly in embarrassment. "I thought you would have figured that out."

The General shook his head. "No… I wasn't expecting that. Well, good for you, Lady." He laughed quietly. "You picked a human this time, I see."

"Hey!" Samus glared playfully at her friend. "I've been with humans before! I've got a fifteen year old son for crying out loud!"

"I'm aware," he chuckled as he relaxed back into his seat. "Your tastes have always been… rather eclectic, so to speak."

"Heh." Samus sipped some more of her coffee. She didn't have anything to counter that accusation. Instead, she decided to change the topic. "Speaking of lovers though, when was the last time you and Marza had a date night?"

The General nearly choked on his coffee as he looked up in shock. "I… I beg your pardon?"

"You and Marza. I mean we've been on Earth for almost a month now. I haven't seen the two of you take a night alone together."

He looked thoughtful for a moment and then shook his head. "I suppose we haven't, not that it's any of your business."

"I know. I just worry about you. You really should try to enjoy more of your time with your family right now before you get called back into space."

He glared at her as he set down his cup. "I do spend time with them. If you haven't noticed, I've just been busy with work and taking care of you."

Samus set down her mug and glared back. "Except that you haven't had that much work, and I'm fine now, so don't try to use me as an excuse, Adam Malkovich. Since we've gotten here, I've watched you do nothing but push your wife and daughters away any time they try to get close to you."

"You don't understand, Samus!" his voice suddenly lost any pretense of calm and became much louder. "You just don't know what you're talking about. You don't have a family, and you have no idea!"

The bounty hunter glared fiercely at him as she watched him realize exactly what he had just said to her.

"Samus, I…"

"Save it." The mercenary held up her hand and continued to glare at him. "Poor little orphan who never married can't know what having a family is like, right? Well, I know more than you think. Whether I'm a good one or not, I am a mother. And besides, stupid-head, what do you think you and Marza and my nieces are to me? I love you, you idiot. You're the closest thing I've ever had to a brother. But I see you pushing away everyone but me lately, and you can't do that! You need a hobby other than worrying about what my reckless ass is going to blow up next."

Adam stared at her, unsure of what to say. He had never heard her mention that she thought of him and his family as her family as well, but he supposed it only made sense. "Samus," he said after a long silence, "it's not that I mean to push anyone away. I just…" He shook his head and looked over to her.

"You can't relate to this world anymore," she said quietly. "You throw yourself into work and shut yourself off because you can't deal with this. You can't look at your wife and your daughters without seeing everything else we've seen, can you?"

The General stared at her solemnly as he nodded. "I've never told anyone that. Is it obvious?"

Samus shrugged. "I know you better than most people. I'd say in general, there's nothing obvious about the way you feel. But I get this… I really do. It's a lot like what I go through. You just go through it quieter. But that's not any better, you know? All these years you pushed me to go to a doctor and get help, and now I'm doing that, and it's getting a little easier to manage. But you need that too, I think."

Adam shook his head, but the ghost of a smile flickered across his face. "Are you calling me a hypocrite, Lady?"

"I suppose I am. Yeah."

"I wouldn't even know how to begin after all these years."

"Yeah," Samus laughed. "It was easier for me because I had the court order therapy with prison as my other option. You don't have that luxury."

"I guess either I do something or I have to answer to Samus Aran. That's pretty good motivation too, right?"

The bounty hunter smiled. "Damn straight it is."

The General smiled as well, but his face quickly grew serious again. "I love you too, Lady. I've never had a sister, but I suppose you've been like one to me all these years. Truthfully, you're the only person I even talk to outside of the Army these days."

"But that will be changing soon."

"I suppose it will."

"Okay, Adam," Samus teased with mock formality. "I'm going to brief you on your next mission."

"Samus…"

"Your first objective is taking care of yourself, talking to some kind of doctor or something. Your second objective—"

"Seriously Samus…"

"Is taking Marza out to dinner and the Opera one of these nights. I will send you a list of restaurants and menu items that are authorized!"

"Do I actually sound like—"

"Any objections, Adam?"

"Ugh." He put his face to his palm and shook his head. "No, no objections. Just please never imitate me again."

Samus smiled. "All right, fair enough."

"On a more serious note though, you should probably go call Elisa. You made one of your hasty exits, and I don't think you realize how cold those come across to people."

The bounty hunter nodded. "You're right. I should do that."

"Did Keaton say what he wants on Monday?" The General picked up his coffee and began sipping it once more.

"No, he didn't want to discuss it on the phone. But he did say it concerns you as well, so I'll brief you on it when I'm done." Samus stood up and pushed her chair in. "Now if you'll excuse me, I only have a couple of days left and I want to spend as much time as possible with my son before I have to say good bye to him again."

 


	10. Rhonda

**Chapter 10: Rhonda**

Hector was not sure if he was supposed to meet up with his mother at some point that day. He had not heard from her since she had walked him home the night before, and since it was a Saturday, it wasn't like he knew to meet her after school. After waiting at home for most of the morning, he figured she would call his cell if she wanted him and left to spend some time with his friends.

It was a warm day, much warmer than it had been recently, and he was glad it seemed like spring was finally springing. Winter seemed to last longer every year, and this time of year there was always nervous talk that climate change would soon leave this area as cold and uninhabitable as territories to the north. Every year, however, spring eventually came, and by summer, talk of imminent doom ceased as people began complaining about the heat.

Heading out to meet Abby and a few of his other friends at the park, Hector opted to throw on jeans, sneakers and plain green tee shirt. It did not take him long to jog down to the park. He was a fast runner, much faster than most of his classmates. Since middle school, he had run track on his school's team, and he had his share of medals to show for his victories. He had never thought much about it and always attributed his speed to his long legs and frequent training. Since meeting Samus, however, he had begun to wonder if there was more to his athleticism than simply hard work. After all, Samus was an enhanced super-soldier. Would it not make sense that he may have inherited some of that?

It was only one of many questions that plagued him about Samus. He wanted very badly to know more about the mysterious woman who was supposedly his mother. He knew she was generally willing to answer anything he asked, even when he could tell she really didn't want to answer, but he had never seen her world first hand. He had never even seen her in that legendary suit of armor she always wore on television.

Abby had been surprised when he had told her his mother was actually her Aunt Sam, but she was not as shocked as he had expected her to be. Strangely enough, his girlfriend knew his mother far better than he did, and it felt weird knowing Samus had been part of her life since she was born. True, Abby and her family were originally from space, but they had moved to Earth when he was very young, and they had grown up down the block from one another. Samus had managed to avoid him that whole time, and while he was glad to finally be getting to know her now, there was still a part of him that was conflicted about all of the lost years. After all, if her life were really as busy and dangerous as she claimed, how long would it be before she left again? And would she ever come back?

It was a morbid thought, but he wondered how he would feel if he found out she died while off on a mission. In theory, his life would go on exactly as it had been only a week earlier, before he knew of his relationship to the legendary bounty hunter. He tried to chase the idea from his mind. It was very unsettling to think about. He had never lost a close family member before, and while Samus was not exactly close yet, she was still his mother, and despite only knowing her a short while, she seemed to genuinely love and care about him. It was hard to stay angry with her for being absent for fifteen years knowing that for so much of that time, she had been putting her own life on the line to protect him and the rest of the galaxy. She may have never acted as his mother in the traditional sense, but she had provided for him and protected him in her own way.

Hector tried to clear his thoughts as he rounded the corner and the small park came into view. It was not anything exciting, but it was the local park he and his friends had played in since they were children. On the other side of the soccer field, he could see Abby sitting with two of their other friends, Bobby and Hikaru. He waved as he jogged over and joined them on the worn out swing set. It was one of those big plastic structures with a slide, monkey bars, and fireman's pole, but it was the same one they had played on as kids and badly in need of replacing. As a result, the only people who ever hung out on it were teenagers, and they did not play so much as sit and talk.

"Hey!" Abby called out as Hector got close. The other two guys just waved.

Bobby was a shorter boy from Abby's year. He was pale and had dark brown hair with the tips bleached and dyed blue, and he wore mostly black clothes and beat up faux combat boots. Hector felt hot just looking at him sitting in the sun in faded back cargo pants and a black hoodie. His parents were very straight laced and clean-cut individuals, and as a result, he seemed to have made it his personal goal in life to embody the teenage spirit of rebellion. Hikaru was nearly as tall as Hector, and he was a thin boy of Asian decent. His straight black hair was long enough that it fell to his shoulders, and he was wearing blue jeans with a band tee shirt. He was in Hector's year, and out of the two boys, Hikaru was generally the more laid back.

"What are you guys up to?" Hector asked the other two once he climbed up the fireman's pole finished kissing Abby hello.

"They're talking about stupid boy things," Abby replied with a laugh. Hector thought she looked particularly pretty that day. She was wearing a yellow sundress and a matching headband in her long brown hair. As tall and thin as she was, she looked like she could have been a model.

"It is not a stupid boy thing!" Bobby glared at Abby. "It's a relevant piece of current events!"

"Right…" Hikaru rolled his eyes, sitting up against the top of the slide. "He's talking about his hero again."

"Yep." Abby nodded. "Full-out fanboy mode."

"You guys!" Bobby glared at the rest of them. "I'm being serious! Samus Aran might still be on Earth!"

That made Hector tense for a moment. He knew there were always rumors about who Samus was or what she was doing (if Samus was even a woman at all), and Bobby kept himself glued to the latest celebrity gossip. It was not unusual for people to follow Samus news the way they followed the birth announcements of Queen Elizabeth III's grandchildren, and a lot of boys at his school were big Samus fans. Hector was never sure why Bobby was as obsessed with Samus as he was, and he had always written it off that Bobby looked up to your typical tough action movie hero type. It felt a little weird now that Hector knew they were talking about his mom. He wondered how Abby had managed to keep a straight face at all of the weird rumors over the years.

"And why," asked Abby with a mischievous sneer, "would Samus Aran bother hanging around Earth? Doesn't he have space bounties to hunt on Mars or something?"

Bobby stared her in the eyes, a deadpan expression on his face. "I can tell you're mocking me. You know Samus is a woman. And Samus doesn't hunt bounties on Mars. Martians are boring small potatoes."

"You're right," Hikaru said, repressing a chuckle. "Mars is nowhere near as interesting as the places Samus hangs out… like  _Bangor_."

"For the thousandth time, 'Karu," Bobby growled, looking like he was about to pop his cork, "there were like, fifty Space Dragon Pirates in Bangor. She had to kill them all because no one else can fight Space Dragon Pirates. She might still be here."

"If she's alive," Hikaru added, his voice suddenly more serious. "No one's seen her or heard from her since that battle. She might have blown herself up in that factory explosion."

Hector did not say anything, but he listened intently. He had not bothered to ask his mother the details of her most recent battle, but he did know that supposedly it had done a number on her and she was still recovering. Abby gave him a knowing look and quick smile that helped dissipate some of the tension he did not realize he had been having.

"She's alive," Bobby retorted, but the statement lacked the conviction he had shown during the rest of the conversation. "She'll be back."

"Yeah…" Hector said awkwardly, feeling weird about not participating in the conversation after blowing off his friends all week. "Maybe she's still alive."

"I find your lack of faith disturbing."

Hector jumped suddenly at the sound of a woman's deep voice coming from behind him. All of them jumped at the sudden interjection, except for Abby, who had been sitting across from Hector and watching the newcomer approaching behind him.

"Hello, Aunt Rhonda!" the girl called as Hector spun awkwardly around and came face to face with his mother. They were sitting on the upper level of the slide-and-jungle-gym-structure, but Samus was tall enough to see over the platform that led to the fireman's pole.

"Hello Abby," she replied with a grin. Her long blonde hair was loose and wild, and he black tank top showed off her muscular form and scars. She looked very out of place in the quiet suburban town.

"Who're you?" Bobby asked, giving Samus a weird look.

"Oh my god, you idiot," Hikaru interjected, shaking his head. "You really don't have any social skills do you? That's the woman who's been staying at General Malkovich's place. Abby clearly knows her."

"You know her, Hector?" Bobby gave Hector a weird look. "You hang out over there, don't you?"

"Oh he knows me," Samus replied, looking Bobby dead in the eyes and wearing a straight face. "I'm the one General Malkovich hired to keep an eye on him and take him out if he tries any funny business with the General's daughter."

Bobby stared back at her, an awkward look on his face as though he was not sure whether or not to believe her. It sounded absurd, but she was certainly intimidating and she had said it so seriously.

Deciding his friend had been mocked enough for one afternoon, Hector swallowed the lump in his throat and decided it was time to do something he had thought about doing since Samus had arrived a week ago. Of course, he had gotten her permission beforehand, not wanting to do anything that would endanger either of them.

"Guys," he said suddenly, his voice quiet but firm enough to grab everyone's attention. "This is Rhonda. She's not actually a hitman for General Malkovich, although they do know each other. She's an old friend of his… and my dad's. I just met her recently." He looked quietly into the confused and curious eyes of Bobby and Hikaru as Abby silently nodded. "Guys, this is my mother."

The two boys stared silently in disbelief. They knew, theoretically, Hector had a mother out there somewhere, although no one knew where. They had listened to his rants before about how he knew his dad knew how to get in contact with her but would never let him do it. Looking at the tough woman before them, Hikaru kind of wondered if she was an ex-con and that's why she had been out of his life for so many years, but that would not have explained where the generous child support checks had come from. Very few people knew about the small fortunes Hector occasionally got from his mystery mom, but he and Hikaru generally told each other everything.

"Hello, Rhonda," Hikaru said after a moment, trying to break some of the tension that had formed over the group. "It's a pleasant surprise to meet you."

"Yeah…" Bobby stared at her awkwardly. "Good to meet you, Mrs. Fields."

" _Bobby_ ," Hikaru hissed and elbowed his friend in the side. "She's not married to Hector's dad. She wouldn't be Mrs. Fields."

Samus just stared coldly at the two boys and gave a smile that stopped at her lips. "It's Sinclaire, actually. Ms. Rhonda Sinclaire."

"Oh," Bobby said with a shrug. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Sinclaire."

Hector turned back toward his mom and looked down at her as she leaned on the fireman's pole. "What's up, Rhonda?"

"Can I borrow you for a little while, Spawn? I need to talk to you about something." Something about her tone bothered him. She was generally pretty flat, but there was something forebodingly flat about it now.

"Sure, just hang on a sec."

Samus stepped out of the way as her son got up and jumped down the fireman's pole, barely having to grab it before he reached the ground.

"What's going on?" he asked as they finally stood face to face.

"Walk with me," she replied quietly as she put a hand on his back and steered him away from his friends.

When they had gotten a sufficient distance away, Samus sat down on one of the benches in a deserted section of the park. She looked around carefully to see if anyone was approaching, and when she saw they were truly alone, she turned to her son.

"I'm sorry, Hector," she said very solemnly as he braced himself for whatever news she might have next. "I just received a call from Chairman Keaton. I have to go back into space on Monday to meet with him. It's a matter of urgent importance, and for whatever reason, I'm the one he needs."

Hector looked at her quietly for a moment as a soft breeze blew by and rustled her long hair. "I'm guessing this isn't the kind of meeting you'll be back from on Tuesday then, huh?"

Samus shook her head. "No. It's not."

Hector looked off to the side and back. "I guess… it's the kind of meeting you're not sure if you'll come back from at all?"

"Those are generally the kinds of meetings I have." She looked at him sadly as she ran a hand through his sandy hair and studied his big green eyes. "I was hoping we had longer, but I can't ignore a summons from the Chairman."

Hector closed his eyes and nodded, fighting against the feelings welling up in his chest. "Yeah… You can't do that." He paused for a moment and took a breath. "But will you try to come back?"

"Hector Aran Fields," she stared at him very seriously, "believe me when I say, I will do everything in my power to return. Everything. There's no force in the universe that could stop me."

Hector looked at his mom, trying not to let on to the emotions suddenly eating him up but failing. "I… I'm really gonna miss you. I know it hasn't been long but—"

"Shh." Samus quieted him as she pulled her son into her embrace. "I know. Believe me, I know. I left you for fifteen years once. I swear that so long as I am living, I will never do that again."

Hector returned her hug and lay pressed up against his mother's shoulder as he felt her hand petting his head and the top of his back.

"Besides," she said after a moment. "We've still got a day and a half left together, and I intend to spend every moment of that with you. If you'd like that, of course."

Pulling away, Hector looked at his mom and smiled. "I'd like that."

 


	11. Pretending to be Human

**Chapter 11: Pretending to be Human**

The desolate planet was dark in the aftermath of whatever had passed through. Black smoke still clouded the sky, blocking out the sun as ash and charred debris fell like rainwater onto the thirsty ground. The only sounds were the crackling of distant fires and the rubble landing on what were once buildings. Spilled chemicals mixed with the blood seeping from the corpses beneath the soot, covering the ground in a sort of red pearlescent liquid that never should have existed.

If there had been a threat to stop here, it had long since finished its reign. There was no one left to threaten.

Samus walked silently over the wreckage, occasionally hearing the cracking of bones beneath her heavy boots. She did not even look down or turn back to see who she might have stepped on, and she did not care. The dead did not concern her now, only finding the killer.

Visibility was poor in every direction, but she could see through the smoke and ash with her x-ray visor. Switching to it, she walked through the monochromatic world, looking for anomalies. At least now instead of seeing the half-exposed bones on charred bodies, all she saw were the bones of what were once people.

She walked along for what felt like an eternity until the smoke began to clear. A strange wind blew from up ahead, parting the raining ash as though it were inviting her to come toward it. It was so unnatural, she was certain that whatever was causing it was the source of destruction on the rest of this world. Switching to her combat visor, she found herself running toward it, head on as a massive, shadowed figure came into view. She could not make out what it was, but it had a head and body almost like a space dragon and massive limbs with inverted joints that spidered from around its torso.

She could feel her heart pounding steady and firm in her chest as the two combatants locked eyes with one another, each one ready for the kill. But as she raised her cannon, she felt something reach out and grab her ankle.

Thrown off by the sudden movement, the hunter jerked her leg free and took a step back to see what had grabbed her. She stared down in sickened horror as half of a human girl looked up at her.

"Aunt Sam," the corpse said, looking up at her with empty eyes. "Help us…"

Samus staggered backward, recognizing the face, despite the decay. So disturbed by the sight, she nearly tripped backward over another body. As she turned to look, she realized it was the form of a tall man, shrouded in a General's coat. Beside him lay a woman she recognized well.

"Adam," she whispered, staggering away as her mind drowned out the gurgling growls of the beast, which had obviously been feeding on the bodies.

Her heart was racing as she turned and looked back at the monster, her eyes wide in a combination of rage and terror as she raised her cannon once more and charged for the abominable creature. But she was halfway through her run when she heard someone call out her name in the distance. Though she glanced in the direction of the sound, she continued her attack.

"Samus!" the voice called out again, but this time she recognized it as she froze in place, her eyes glued to the human form appearing through the smoke.

"No!" she called back, suddenly unable to move. "Hector, run! Hec—!"

Before she could finish what she was saying, the creature lunged forward and thrust out one of its long, javelin-like limbs. It ran the clawed structure through her torso in a matter of seconds, cutting through her armor like butter. She could taste the metallic blood in her mouth as the beast pinned her to the ground and stood over her, still a heavily shadowed form she could not quite see. But she could see the whole world going dark as the ash fell around her like snow.

"Samus!" she heard the voice again, coming closer as she could see her son running toward her, completely oblivious to the monstrous alien that impaled her. But she was unable to speak and warn him of its presence. "Samus!"

The beast looked down at her with familiar red-golden eyes as she remained paralyzed and unable to do anything but stare up in horror as it turned to the boy.

Though her vision was fading out, it was like slow-motion high-definition as she watched it tear through him. And she screamed.

She didn't know how she screamed, and she was not even aware she was screaming until she could hear it. And she kept screaming as everything faded to black. She could only feel her ragged breathing and her heart pounding painfully as her whole body was wracked with the screaming.

But distantly, she could hear someone calling her name, although she could not quite register it. There was a terrible pressure on her chest as she felt something restrain her. Or grab her.

Someone was grabbing her arms, and she could hear her name.

"Samus!" a man's voice called to her, sounding like his right in front of her. "Samus, wake up!"

She was still screaming when she opened her eyes, although it was hoarse and painful. She could see the form of the man holding her. She could see his face, and she recognized him, although she was not sure from where.

"Samus," he said very gently, loosening his hold on her as she lay back down against the bed, her body still tense and rigid. "Samus, you're having a nightmare."

She saw another person hand him something and soon felt him wipe her forehead with a cool, damp cloth. Her skin was clammy, and she was drenched in sweat, but the gentle feel of the cloth wiping it from her face calmed her a little. She tried to gather her composure as best as she could, but her whole body was shaking.

"Adam?" she managed in a hoarse whisper as she looked up at the man.

"That's right, Lady," he said softly as he took the cloth away and helped her sit up. "Marza's here too. We heard you yelling from down the hall."

"Where… what are you doing here?" she looked around groggily, still trying to figure out where she was. She could feel some big furry animal curl up beside her and nuzzle its head into her lap. Unconsciously she began petting its head.

Adam knelt bedside the bed and looked up at her. "You're at my house. In my spare bedroom. You've been here over a week. You came here to meet your son."

"Hector…" she choked out, her eyes snapping open wide as she stared at Adam. "He's dead… I watched him die… You're all dead."

Adam stared at her quietly for a moment before taking a seat beside her on the bed and pulling her into his arms. "Hector's alive, Lady," he said quietly as a trembling Samus rested against him. "I'm not dead. See?"

She could hear his heart beating as she pressed an ear to his chest and felt her body relax slightly.

"I'm not dead either," said Marza with a smile, taking a step closer and kneeling where Adam had been on the floor. "Everything's okay, Sam. You just had a bad dream."

Samus closed her eyes and tried to gather her thoughts. It was not the first time she had woken up like this. No, this sort of thing was a semi-regular occurrence for her. The only difference was that she was always either alone on her ship or in her crappy apartment. She would wake up shaking, and covered in sweat, occasionally in a different spot than she had gone to sleep in. Without anyone around, it frequently took her a long time to try to figure out what was real and what was only a dream. Her nightmares had become frighteningly vivid over the years, and sometimes they were almost impossible to tell from real life. At some point, she had begun keeping a journal so that on those occasions, she could go back and read it to sort out what had actually happened and what hadn't.

It was embarrassing to be seen in this state, even if only Adam and Marza were present. And she had no doubt that if they were in Adam's house, Abby and Evie knew as well.

"Thank you," she whispered as Adam continued to wipe the sweat from her face and neck. She felt something warm and wet run itself along her palm and realized Archer was licking it.

"It's ok, Sam," Marza said, taking the cloth back from Adam. "You know we got you if you need us."

Not long ago, the idea of someone implying she needed them would have flared up her temper. She had survived on her own for so many years; she never needed anyone. But her temper had cooled considerably since then, and even if she knew she never needed anyone to be there to get her through a night terror, she was glad to have them. It was embarrassing to be seen as a shaking, screaming mess, but it felt good to know there were people who loved and cared about her enough that they didn't care and would never hold it against her.

Samus rested like that for a little while until her shaking calmed down. She was exhausted, and there was still a horrible pressure in her chest that made it difficult to breathe, but overall, she was feeling much better than she had been. Eventually she pulled away from Adam and sat up against the headboard. Archer looked up at her as he came forward onto her lap and draped his body over her protectively. She scratched behind his ears and rubbed his neck as she took a moment to appreciate just how attached to her the shaggy dog had become in such a short time.

"I'm all right," Samus said, her voice considerably stronger than it had been a few minutes earlier. "Thank you both for your help, but I'm really all right now."

Adam nodded, but he still looked concerned. Marza, on the other hand, just smiled at her understandingly.

"I'll leave you two alone," she said. "I need to be up early so I'll head back to bed. Sneak back in quietly if you do, Adam." She grinned at her husband coyly as she left Samus's room and closed the door behind her.

"You and Marza have a good night together?" Samus asked, trying to sound playful but not quite able to yet.

"Heh…" Adam looked embarrassed, and Samus was certain she saw the General blush slightly. "Well after dinner and the ballet… It was our first date night in a few years and… it ended like a date night."

Samus smiled at her friend, and though her face clearly displayed her exhaustion, it was a genuine smile. "Good for you, Adam."

He laughed nervously. "I didn't realize what a long time it had been. How long it had been since she and I even just spent an evening together. Tomorrow, we're taking the girls to see some silly looking movie called  _Sack Lunch_  and then to the World War IV museum."

"World War IV?" Samus asked, genuinely interested. She had heard of Wars taking place within a single planet, but those were usually referred to as Civil Wars.

Adam glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. "You really don't know much about human history before we joined the Galactic Federation, do you?"

The bounty hunter shrugged. "I know what I need. It's never been relevant."

"World War IV was the last major war fought between countries on Earth before we aligned ourselves with the other planets of the Federation. My grandfather fought in it. He was in the Royal Canadian Navy."

Archer picked his head up to nuzzle Samus's hand, and she realized she had stopped petting him and promptly corrected herself.

"I didn't realize you had family in the military outside of Ian."

Adam flinched slightly at his deceased brother's name. Not even Samus usually ever brought him up. "My father was a surgeon, and my mother was an attorney, but both of my grandfathers and one of my grandmothers were high ranking military officials in Canada. And Canada had the largest, most well structured Armed Forces on Earth."

"Canada sounds like a nice place," Samus said with a yawn. "If it ever thaws out, I think I'd like to visit there someday."

Adam chuckled and glanced at Archer, who stared back up at him warily. "Which dream was it this time, Lady?"

Samus closed her eyes, the tightness returning to her chest. "On a mission. Destroyed planet. Charred bodies. Giant vague shadowy alien monster thing. The bodies were… they were you and…" She stopped herself, deciding it best not to mention she had seen his wife and daughter among the dead. "Hector came running toward me. I was impaled by the monster and couldn't move. He kept coming toward me and I couldn't do anything and…"

She didn't have to finish the sentence. Adam knew. He also knew that she had had similar dreams of her son being killed trying to run to her for the past fifteen years. The difference, this time, was that she actually knew what her son looked like, and he was certain she saw him die with excruciating detail.

"I thought I was doing better," she said after a moment. "I hadn't been having nightmares… no flashbacks. I've been feeling good lately, so why…? I have to leave to meet Keaton on Monday." She glanced over to the clock on her nightstand and saw it was well after midnight. "Tomorrow. I have to leave to meet Keaton tomorrow. I can't be falling apart…"

"Lady," Adam said softly, "have you considered that might be why this happened? You spent all evening with Hector, but this assignment is obviously weighing on your mind."

"Perhaps." Samus yawned again and shook her head. "I got too comfortable here, pretending to be a human."

"At the end of the day, Samus, you are, at least for the most part, human. You do need to acknowledge that side of yourself from time to time."

The bounty hunter shook her head. "I just worry I've been letting myself get soft here. Acting human. Being a mom. Staying in warm, comfy places. There's a reason I lived the way I did before coming to Earth."

"And when you came here, you were so on edge you would fly into a rage if anyone said the wrong thing to you. You were staying awake for days and not eating for weeks at a time. You were seeing remnants of the Space Pirate War everywhere you looked, and no one could even say the word 'K-2L' to you. There's such a thing as having too much of an edge, and you were heading for disaster. The Federation thought you were unstable enough that they had me accompany you to Earth. I think you've shown a huge improvement since then."

Samus thought quietly for a few moments, still deeply unsettled by the nightmare. "Perhaps your right. Or do you think that maybe I'm just so fundamentally…  _damaged_  I'll fall apart again the moment I step back onto the battlefield?"

"Lady." He looked her in the eyes, his face very serious. "I've seen you come back from much worse. You're a warrior, Samus. I don't know what happened when you destroyed Zebes or why that shook you up so badly. I know you've been dealing with feeling irrelevant since the Space Pirate War ended. You need to stop that. You're stronger than you realize, Samus."

She didn't say anything as she listened to her friend and continued to pet the dog.

"Besides," he continued, his voice a bit more gentle, "you may not have been in any combat lately, but you've amazed me with the things you've faced since we were at Blackacre. Your past, K-2L and your family's murder. Your present, coming to terms with the fact that your mortal enemies have all been conquered. And now your future. Your progeny. I know how much courage you had to get up for that last one." Then he smiled ironically. "And you convinced my stubborn ass to actually take some time out of work and start dealing with my own issues."

Samus nodded solemnly, taking in everything he said. "I guess I'll just have to see how I feel in the morning. It's hard to process anything right now."

The General nodded as he stood up and smoothed the part of the blanket he had been sitting on. "I know it is. Do you think you'll be able to get back to sleep?"

The bounty hunter shrugged as she slowly settled herself back into a sleeping position, careful not to disturb the dog too much. "If I can't, I'll take a sedative. I have to be well rested. I'm introducing Hector to Elisa, letting her know why I've been so distant since the other night. I don't want her to think I'm… well, the love-em-and-leave-em type."

Adam nodded again. "Good night, Lady." He turned off the light as he went out the door.

"Goodnight, Adam." Samus yawned as Archer repositioned himself beside her. She wrapped an arm around the big dog and snuggled into his warm fur. It did not take long for her to fall back to sleep.

 


	12. Always Saying Good-Bye

**Chapter 12: Always Saying Good-Bye**

"So… he's your son?" Elisa looked back and forth between Samus and Hector, deeply surprised and not sure what to say. "As in, you're a mother?"

"More or less… yeah." Samus stared back at the officer, suddenly feeling very awkward about the whole situation and wondering if she should have never told her. "Biologically, he is my son."

Samus, Elisa, and Hector sat at a picnic table at the park, Samus and her son on one side facing Elisa on the other. The bounty hunter was not sure why she had elected to introduce the two of them, but it was too late to do anything about it now.

"It's nice to meet you, Officer Rodriguez," Hector said politely, once again falling back on his manners.

He also seemed to be wondering why he was meeting this woman, and it had become even more awkward when Samus realized she was not sure what to introduce Elisa as. In the end, she had opted to call the other woman her friend and hoped it would not raise any more questions as to the nature of her relationship with her. It was not that she was ashamed that there was anything between her and the officer, but she was unsure of how to classify whatever was between them and did not want to be put on the spot.

"It's very nice to meet you as well, Hector," Elisa replied with a genuine smile. That was one thing Samus loved about the woman: her laugh or her smile could dispel tension anywhere and set her more at ease. As she extended a gloved right hand, and the boy shook it, he was surprised to find that the officer's entire right arm was robotic. It was as though he had never encountered anything like that before.

Sometimes, Samus was shocked by just how sheltered the boy seemed. While she was glad he never had to endure the sort of life she had, it concerned her how out of touch with the rest of the galaxy he was, having grown up in a small town on Earth. She doubted he'd ever seen an Alien in his life, and he probably had only met a handful of Semi-Humans, herself included. It was strange to her, particularly given that he was her son and she was part Alien herself. Still, he remained polite and calm, and Samus began to wonder what it would be like if she ever brought him into space with her.

The bounty hunter zoned out a little bit as she watched her son and her friend getting to know one another and exchanging pleasantries. She was still a little out of it from the nightmare early that morning. It had been a relief to see her son alive and well when she had arrived at the park, and she had scooped him into such a tight hug that he asked if she was okay. Of course, she didn't tell him that she had dreamed of him being torn apart by alien monsters and woken up in a panic believing he was dead. There was no point to letting him know about that, and it would likely upset him. He knew nothing of her battles with anxiety and post-traumatic stress, and she intended to keep it that way.

After all, today was her last day with him before she would have to return to space. It could be a very long time before she would see him again, assuming she made it back at all. Normally, the thought that she might not return from a mission did not bother her too much. There had been a time when it had really frightened her, and she could not say that fear had ever fully disappeared. However, she had grown more accustomed to it over the years. She had always known that she would never make it to a ripe old age and die as an old woman in a warm bed. She had doubted she would live to be thirty-three, but she had proven herself wrong with that one. Still, she knew when her time came, she would be killed in a violent fashion, and she had accepted that a long time ago.

That was not to say she wanted to die. Far from it. At this point in her life anyway. Though she would never admit it aloud, there was a time not long ago when she felt as though it might have been better if she had perished with the rest of Zebes and the Chozo's legacy. Now, however, she was thankful she had gotten the opportunities to meet her son and other family members and to reunite with Adam's family. Her life had hit a terrible low after the destruction of Zebes and end of the Space Pirate War, but since then she had gotten more in touch with her human side and found meaning through the people she loved. Now, more than ever, she wanted to make it home from her mission alive and be able to start building a life with her son. She may have been fifteen years late to the table, but she desperately wanted to try to be a mother to him, even if she was not particularly well suited to the job.

"Samus?"

The bounty hunter looked up from her thoughts to see Hector and Elisa both staring at her.

"Are you all right?" the officer asked. "You look exhausted."

"Oh," Samus replied with a yawn and a shake of her head. "I'm fine. Just didn't sleep much last night. A lot on my mind." She smiled. "Besides, you two seemed to be getting on so well, I didn't feel the need to jump in."

"Are you sure?" Elisa looked at her skeptically, but Samus dismissed it. "Anyway, I should be going. I'm driving back up to Rosewood tonight."

"I'll walk you to your car," the bounty hunter said as she and the officer stood up.

Hector stayed at the table and waited as the two women walked over to Elisa's hovercar. When they reached it, Samus leaned up against the car and looked at Elisa.

"I'm sorry for running out on you the other morning," Samus said as Elisa reached to open the car door.

The officer paused and looked over to the other woman. "I understand. Really. When orders come in, you can't just ignore them."

"I can pay for the blouse if you need—"

Elisa laughed and shook her head. "Don't worry about it. I had fun. It lived its life, and it had an honorable death."

Samus smiled, but she knew something was still wrong. A strange tension hung between them. "So… what's going on then?"

"What do you mean?" Elisa looked at her quizzically, although she knew exactly what Samus meant.

"Things have just felt… different today."

The officer sighed and leaned up against the car beside Samus. "Please don't be mad about this, but it's just… weird to me. I just never pictured you in a thousand years as… a mom."

All Samus could do was nod in understanding and look at the ground. "I really can't be upset about that. I can't picture me as a mom."

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Would it have changed anything?" Samus looked up and regarded her friend. "I'm still the same person. I just have a kid."

"I know. I do know that." Elisa shook her head and looked at Samus. "I don't know why it's throwing me for such a loop."

"Does this change anything?"

"Between us?"

Samus nodded. "I enjoyed the other night. I know I'm rushing off back to space now, but I do plan on returning to Earth after."

Elisa shifted uncomfortably. "Your son doesn't change anything between us. Don't worry about that. Your job though… it's hard saying good bye like this all the time."

"Oh." Samus didn't know what to say to that.

"I'm not saying it's a deal breaker… I'm not saying anything really." Elisa shook her head in frustration. "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to confuse you either. I want to see you again. I want to spend more time with you. I'm just hoping, maybe next time you come to town you'll stick around for more than a week?"

Samus tried to smile, but the effort was in vain. "I can't make any promises."

"Oh." It was Elisa's turn to be speechless.

"I can try," the mercenary said after a moment. "But my life is dangerous and demanding, and I'm still trying to figure out this whole being a mother thing."

"Of course."

There was a heavy silence for a few moments before Samus finally stepped away from the car. "I guess you better be going now."

"Yeah…" Elisa looked up at Samus, and the two women wordlessly exchanged a passionate kiss goodbye. When they parted, they simply smiled and nodded to one another, and Elisa got into her car and drove away. Samus stayed for a while and watched her disappear before turning to walk back to the picnic table.

But she did not have to walk far because as soon as she turned around, she saw Hector watching her from the edge of the parking lot looking very surprised.

"Hey kid," she said as she walked up to him and smiled.

"Hey Samus," he replied as his mother ruffled his hair and they began walking together along a paved path.

They walked together in silence for a long time, neither sure what to say. They were simply enjoying one another's company, and neither wanted to think about Samus's upcoming departure. There was an unspoken rule between them that neither would talk about Samus leaving or her upcoming mission, at least not until it was time. Instead, they spent the whole day trying to enjoy it as much as possible. They spent the morning walking through the park, admiring the view of the mountains in the distance. For lunch, they got a couple of sandwiches and sat out together on the shore of the lake.

The next few hours found them renting a row boat, which Samus paddled all too enthusiastically as far from the boat rental as possible. They spent the afternoon out on the lake exploring the Adirondacks from the boat and marveling at the gorgeous natural landscapes in the same way Samus had when she first arrived on Earth. Despite how much hostility she had encountered since coming to the planet, she was still amazed by its natural beauty and the way her human side felt so drawn to it.

At some point, they returned the boat and had a light dinner before hiking through the woods for a couple of hours. By nightfall, Samus and her son lay on their backs in a field looking up at the stars. The park was technically closed, but Samus had never been one for following rules, and Hector had not objected to staying despite his apprehensions. On one hand, he worried about kicked out for trespassing, but on the other hand, he felt inherently safe with Samus around.

He lay with his hands folded over his chest as he stared at the clear night sky. There was very little light pollution around, so many of the stars shone through clearly. For the first time since he was a child, Hector found himself wondering what space was like. He wondered if he would ever get off of the Earth and be able to explore it.

"So that's where you're going tomorrow?" he asked after a long, peaceful silence.

Without looking up, Samus nodded. "Yes. I have to go by the shipyards at Aliehs-III to get my ship, but then I'm heading off to a planet called Daiban to meet with Chairman Keaton."

Hector was only distantly familiar with who Chairman Keaton was. He recognized the name from school and current events, and he knew the little green Alien was the Chief Executive of the Galactic Federation government. Earth, however, was so removed from the rest of the galaxy that he had never thought too closely about the Federation's structure.

"Sounds important," he replied, looking over to his mother.

"Very." She still didn't look up. She lay with her hands behind her head, staring up at the sky and looking peaceful. "If Keaton wants to meet with me directly, it's going to be a big mission. He usually only summons me like this if there are Space Pirates or metroids involved. Now that those are gone, I'm not sure what he wants."

"And you have to do whatever he says?"

"It's in my best interest to do what the Chairman says. It pays my bills."

"But you don't really need a lot more money, do you?" The boy rolled over halfway and leaned on his elbow. "I mean, you have enough to live on, right?"

Samus glanced suspiciously over to her son. "Yes…"

"Well… I mean… have you considered maybe not being a mercenary anymore? Maybe retiring and coming to live here?"

Samus sat up and stared at her son. "I can't do that, Hector."

"Because of the money?"

"Because of who I am," she said softly. "My life has a purpose. I was designed to be this way, to be the protector of the galaxy. I can't abandon that just because I don't want to fight anymore."

"Do you not want to fight anymore?"

Samus smiled sadly. "I hate fighting. I do it because I have to. Because someone has to and I'm the only one who can. I do it so you and other people have a safe galaxy to grown up and live in. I can't just turn my back on that."

Hector sat up too, suddenly feeling something welling up inside of him. "But it's not fair… you just got here!" He realized that he had said that louder and more angrily than he had intended to. "I'm sorry… I just mean—"

"You're right," Samus said firmly. "It's not fair. It's not fair to you for me to have come into your life so suddenly, turn everything upside down for a week and then leave again. Possibly forever."

Hector did not know what to say and just stared at Samus in surprise. He had not expected her to see the situation like that.

"And we both know," the bounty hunter continued, "that I can promise I'll come back here all I want, but that doesn't mean I will. I will fight like hell to get back here, to try to actually be a mother to you or at least to be someone in your life. But realistically, we both know…"

She didn't finish the sentence, and it trailed off ominously into the night.

"I'm gonna miss you," Hector said after a moment, his voice breaking slightly on the last word. "I'm really gonna miss you."

Samus could barely speak as a rush of words got caught in her throat. There was no phrase in any language she knew that would capture how she felt about leaving him. There were no words that could describe the gut-wrenching pain she felt at the thought of leaving her child again. But she did not have to find words as her son came rushing toward her. She only had enough time to throw her arms open and catch him in her embrace as he hugged her tight.

He was nearly as large as a man now, and as she held him, she could not help but think of the way she had missed so many other parts of his life. That she had never known him as a toddler learning to walk or as a child trying to explore the world. She only knew him as a young adult trying to make sense out a senseless world, and now she did not know when she would ever see him again. She had already missed so much of her boy's life, she could not help but feel herself begin to cry.

They were silent tears, though. And her breathing only hitched a little. But she could feel Hector crying in her arms, his face pressed up against her shoulder. She knew there was a lot of pent up sadness in him from the lost years as well. He had grown up without a mother, but not just without a mother. He had grown up believing his mother had abandoned him because she did not want him, although that could not be farther from the truth.

She simply comforted her son in silence until he stopped crying and just remained in her arms. They were both thankful for the dark solitude so no one could see their tears. Samus wished they could stay like that forever, turn to stone and rest like Chozo statues for eternity so they would never have to part again.

But she knew they had to. She knew her duties to the universe and to her family, and that meant answering the Federation's call tomorrow. At some point, she knew she had to stand up because the longer she sat, the harder it would be to move when the time came. Instead of pushing Hector away, she simply scooped him up into her arms as she stood.

The boy looked suddenly alarmed as he felt himself being lifted effortlessly off the ground. Wrapping his arms tightly around her, he looked at Samus in shock as she began carrying him in the direction of his house.

"Samus…" He looked at her curiously, amazed by her strength. He had heard her say she was a genetically enhanced warrior, but he had never seen any of the effects of that first hand.

"Shh…" She hushed him quietly with a grin. "We need to get you back to your father before he gets worried again."

"Heh," Hector laughed nervously, embarrassed that she was actually carrying him but still glad on some level that she was. "You're really strong…"

"That's how they built me."

He relaxed into her arms and allowed the mercenary to carry him out of the park and onto the empty roads. No one was out and about this late at night, especially not on a Sunday night. When they reached his house, she put him down by this front door and let him stand.

Hector was nearly six feet tall, but he was stilled dwarfed by his mother's Amazonian height. Although she was a woman, she was physically intimidating, and he found himself amazed once more by how strong she was. Then again, he should not have been surprised given her role as the protector of the galaxy.

Their good bye, from that point, was short and sweet. She gave him a big hug and a kiss as she promised once more that she would do everything she could to make it back to see him soon. At some point, however, he knew she had to put distance between them, and as he watched her walk away from his father's house, he knew that no matter what happened he needed to see her again.

He was not sure what possessed him just then as he watched Samus walk away. Perhaps it was a desire to bond with his newly discovered mother or a need to know exactly what it meant to be the son of someone like Samus Aran, but his head flew into a strange state as he went into his quiet house.

Jack had gone to bed hours ago, knowing his son was safe under his mother's protection. That meant that Hector had the house all to himself.

The boy had never been one for breaking rules. In general, he had always been a quiet, well-mannered child who took after his father to a T. Now, however, it was as though some other side to him had awakened, and he became possessed with a single-minded clarity that let him know what he had to do.

His father had never been one to hide anything or lock up his computers so Hector could not get to them. After all, the boy had never given his father any reason to worry about or suspect him of anything. As he crept into the kitchen and pulled his father's credit card out of his unguarded wallet, Hector felt a stab of guilt that he was throwing away so many years of trust built up between them.

But he had to do this.

And as he sat at his father's computer and purchased a one-way ticket to a planet called Daiban, he could only hope his flight would take off before his father would wake up and realize his credit card had been stolen.

 


	13. The Chairman's Chambers

**Chapter 13: The Chairman's Chambers**

Adam Malkovich was sitting down for the morning's second cup of coffee when he heard the banging on his door. His pulse rising unintentionally, he nearly spilled his beverage before he shook his head and stalked angrily over to see who could be disturbing him at such an hour. While it was not exactly early, he had been up late with Samus and had only just woken up.

Peering through the peephole, he was relieved and confused to find it was only Jack Fields. With a groan, he opened the door and regarded the younger man.

"What's going on, Jack?" the General asked gruffly, hoping to convey the fact that he was in no mood to exchange pleasantries.

"General Malkovich," Jack replied, his voice stern despite how awkward he felt to be looking at the high-ranking official dressed in pajama pants and a bathrobe, "I'm having a problem. Have you seen Hector anywhere? Did he and Samus come back here last night?"

"Samus said she walked him back to your place and left him there."

Jack shook his head. "I thought maybe he came in after I went to bed, but I didn't see him this morning, and his school just called to ask where he is. He's not at home either. Can I talk to Samus?"

"Negative," Adam replied, raising his eyebrows and trying to think of some logical place the boy could be. "She left for Daiban this morning. The Chairman sent a shuttle for her, and she's been gone for a few hours now."

"Is there any way to get in touch with her?" Desperation filled Jack's voice.

"I doubt it. She doesn't usually answer calls when she's prepping for something like this. Besides, she gave no indication that she thought he would be anywhere but home. Don't try leaving her a message either. Not until we can rule out some other logical explanation. She doesn't need to be distracted thinking her son is missing and go get herself killed wherever the Feds are shipping her off to."

Jack stared at the General in frustration. "So how do you propose looking for him? Did Abby say anything?"

Adam shook his head. "I'll send Abridgette a text, but as far as I know she's in school right now. And if she's not…" He shook his head and pulled his phone from his pocket to text his daughter. "Think harder, Jack. Was anything taken? Car keys? Money? Credit card?"

"Car is in the driveway. And Hector's a good kid. He wouldn't steal either of those things."

"He also wouldn't cut out of class, now would he?"

Jack looked momentarily offended and ready to argue, but then changed his mind and pulled out his wallet. "Son of a bitch!" he shouted as he rifled through it. "My credit card is missing!"

"There's your answer," Adam replied dismissively as he hit Send and put his phone away. "Just call your bank and check the most recent charges to your account."

Jack shook his head and looked like he was ready to shout again. "My son is a good kid. He wouldn't do something like this…"

Adam frowned. "Kids do crazy things, Jack. Figure out why before jumping to conclusions. There may be some outside reason he felt the need to."

"He's a good kid," Jack replied flatly. "I've always been able to trust him. But he spends one week with that mercenary and—"

"And what?" The General glared at his neighbor.

Jack shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'm just worried. But having Samus around… well, you know her."

Adam knew what Jack meant, although he did not acknowledge it. Samus had never been a model citizen and he could see how Jack might worry about her influence over their son, but he also knew Samus loved the child more than life itself and would never encourage any dangerous type of behavior. Instead of saying anything, he watched as Jack called his bank and listened to the automated voice rattle off the most recent charges to his account. At one point, the man's face turned completely white as his eyes fell open wide.

After a moment, he turned to regard Adam, a look of pure terror on his face. "He bought a ticket for a one-way flight… to Daiban."

The General stared back at the other man, suddenly shocked by the news.

"Still think this has nothing to do with Samus?"

* * *

It felt good to be back behind the controls of a spacecraft, and as Samus Aran approached Daiban's atmosphere in the loaner ship the Feds had provided for her, she felt herself wishing she never had to land. Spending a month on Earth had been nice in a lot of ways, and she certainly would not have given up meeting her son, but there was something about being in her power suit and piloting a ship that felt so much more natural to her. It was not as nice of a ship as either of the two she owned, but it certainly got the job done, and after being grounded for so long, any chance to get back into the skies was a welcome change. Figuring she had some time before her appointment began, she was in no rush to get to her destination, and it was almost disappointing when Daiban finally came into view.

She dialed in the landing code as she approached the planet and waited for clearance. Her suit was in decent shape, although she was looking forward to getting back to her own ship so she could finish refilling the energy and missile tanks. There were still a few upgrades offline, but she had gone into battle with far fewer weapons, and even a Chozo powersuit functioning at 70% would be more powerful than anything the Federation could issue.

Her landing was smooth and steady as she docked the rental ship at Federal base. Daiban was the capitol planet of the Galactic Federation, and it was one with which Samus was very well acquainted. Everyone on the planet recognized her trademark orange and gold powersuit, whether from meeting her in real life or seeing her in the media. As she exited the ship, she nodded in greeting to the garage attendants and went on her way, confident that the ship would still be there when she returned. Public government-owned garages were generally safe on this side of the planet, but she looked forward to getting back to the private garage she rented space in at Aliehs-III. Although it was pricey, she had never found anywhere more secure to dock her vessels when not in use, and they didn't ask any questions about some of the "modifications" she had made to them over the years.

On her way out, she had an afterthought. "There's an animal onboard," she called out to the attendants as she turned to look behind her. "Maybe sure nothing happens to the ship and that no one tries to enter it."

Archer had not been crazy about space travel, and he had not taken well to seeing her in her powersuit. The poor creature had been so spooked by the whole trip, he was undoubtedly going to be in a nasty mood for a while, but she did not have time to sort that out until after her meeting with Keaton.

Leaving the docking bay, she entered the attached government building. For any other civilian, there would normally be a thorough search for weapons or other contraband, but Samus and her weapons were literally inseparable and she had permission from the Chairman himself to enter while in her powersuit. In a lot of ways, she was afforded privileges other mercenaries were not, and she knew that had as much to do with her ties to people in power as it did with her career achievements. That had certainly helped her obtain her notoriety as the Federation's lapdog.

She proceeded along the main thoroughfare, ignoring the nervous and envious glares of onlookers. As always, the massive government complex was filled with all species of creatures from every corner of the known galaxy. Samus's trademark golden armor was infamous throughout the universe, and her presence at the Federation's capitol always meant something big was going down, potentially something from which other mercenaries could profit. It did not escape her memory that there had been rumors of her death after the Bangor incident, and she wondered just how prevalent those rumors were in the more central parts of Federation space.

It did not take her long to make her way up to Keaton's office, and all of the guards let her pass easily as they had been notified of her arrival. She nodded silently to them as she passed by. Despite her temper and notoriety, she always made the effort to be polite to anyone she considered an ally.

When she finally entered the Chairman's chambers, she found the small green Alien at his desk. The desk and the office itself were large and regally decorated. The ceiling was a dome painted to look like the night sky filled with the stars of the systems that made up the Federation territories. There were windows on all sides of the circular office, although Samus knew from experience they were of a missile-proof material from which one could only see out. They rose up in golden arches, stopping just before the painting on the ceiling. Between them hung oil paintings of Chairmen past, the only decorations that looked anachronistic in the otherwise futuristic space.

"Good afternoon, Samus," the Chairman called to the mercenary as he motioned for her to come forward. He stood up from his seat and approached her, his height totaling no more than four feet and looking ridiculous next to the seven-foot tall golden cyborg. Keaton was a strange wrinkly green creature who frequently appeared angrier than he was.

"Good afternoon, Chairman," Samus replied in her partially synthesized voice. Despite how anxious she was to find out why she had been called in, she respected his wish to exchange pleasantries. It was a sort of ritual between them.

"Please, Samus, make yourself more comfortable," Keaton said in his usually grumpy-sounding tone as he returned to his seat. "Take off that armor and speak to me face to face." He gestured to a chair across the desk from him.

Samus initially hesitated, but after a moment, she deactivated her armor and it returned to its tiny capsule around her neck. Underneath, she was wearing a form-fitting navy blue flight suit and boots. It was not overly tight, but it hugged her body just enough that it would be comfortable to wear under her armor and not create too much bulk. There was a pink Chozo symbol above her left breast, and the suit zipped up into a turtleneck so the only exposed skin was her face. Her long blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, and without any makeup, her Phazon scarring was as prominent as ever. Wordlessly, she took her seat across from the Chairman.

"I suppose you're wondering why I called you in today," he began as he folded his hands on the oversized desk before him. "After all, the Space Pirate War has ended, and the Metroid threat has been eliminated. What else could possibly rise to this level of importance?"

"I've certainly been curious," Samus replied with a very professional smile.

"First things first," he continued, "I take it you've finished healing after your last battle. General Malkovich's report mentioned you had sustained heavy damage and would be out of commission for a few months. Knowing you like I do though, I'll venture that one month has been sufficient?"

The bounty hunter nodded. "General Malkovich worries too much. The orthopedic had initially said three months, but she was not familiar with my… genetic make-up, to put it bluntly."

"Very well." The Alien's voice conveyed no emotion. "Let's get straight to business. As you know, I've already served three terms as the Chairman of the Federation. My third term will be drawing to a close in about a year and a half, and as per the Articles of Confederation, I cannot run for office a fourth time. Since the end of the war, my party has been falling out of favor. The public views us as strong with wartime scenarios, but lacking in the ways that would generally cause prosperity in times of peace. Those claims are not without merit, and I fully expect the opposing party to sweep the next election.

"This does not bode well for you, Samus. There have been a lot of people protesting and condemning the Federation's use of private military contractors over Federation troops in recent days. They think it was an inefficient system and an abuse of power for use to hire mercenaries for so many things. They have no idea what I've been paying you, and we can only hope they never find out. The media would have a field day turning you from the Galaxy's Savior into a corrupt money-hungry charlatan, but such is the fickle way of the media."

"I know how the media works," Samus interrupted, furrowing her brow, "but I doubt you called me here just to talk politics."

Keaton nodded. "I'm getting there, Aran. Be patient for once in your short human life… Anyway, I've still yet to pay you the bounties on the terrorists you took out on Earth."

"The Purists?" Samus asked, genuinely surprised. "I looked them up in the database. A hundred a head, and live captures only. I didn't exactly spare any of them…"

"No, you didn't." The little green Alien sounded annoyed. "But when do you ever? No, not the Purists though. I'm talking about the Space Dragons they contracted with to take you out. Apparently those mercenaries have been taking jobs for terrorist groups across the galaxy for quite sometime, and you unknowingly stopped that rampage. Bravo, Samus." His voice was dry as ever. "At any rate, that will be five hundred."

Samus's eyes widened. "Thousand?" She may have been financially well off these days, but five hundred thousand credits was still a hell of a lot for one mission.

"Yes," Keaton replied, sounding bored. "Five hundred thousand per head. And you took out five, correct? That's 2.5 million right there. We'll transfer it to your account."

Samus was speechless for a moment. She had not even bothered to look up if there were any bounties out for the Space Dragons, something she should have realized in retrospect. "That's more than twice what I made for Zebes…"

"Yes, well…" Keaton smiled half-heartedly. "Consider it something akin to severance pay. Once I'm out of the picture, I doubt the Federation will be contracting with you again. Unless of course you agree to take ridiculous jobs like escorting scientists around hostile planets so they can collect fauna samples." He made a scratchy sound in his throat Samus recognized as laughter. "But I don't see you being too keen on that kind of work."

"Severance pay," Samus repeated, suddenly feeling irritated. "So you're really kicking me to the curb after all these years?"

The Chairman made a dismissive noise. "Hardly. For as long as I'm still in office, I still plan to contract with you, although less overtly now."

"I'm pretty sure half of Daiban has figured out I'm here."

"As far as they are concerned, you're collecting from your last mission or following up after the end of the war."

"As far as I know," Samus persisted, that is all I'm doing. "Unless there's more?"

"Of course there is." Keaton's wrinkly little face looked even more annoyed. "I didn't call you out here just to throw a few credits your way and have a nostalgic good-bye. I've got a mission for you, but it's imperative you keep this one to yourself. Not even General Malkovich learns the details of this, understood?"

"Perfectly."

"Good. Anyway, there's a planet out in the Nine Quadrant called LV-426. It's toward the edge of Federation territory so it's practically in deep space. There was a colony there called Hadley's Hope, but we'd recently lost all touch with the colony."

"What kind of colony, Sir?"

"Human. Terraformers and early settlers. A group of transplants from Earth who had been living there for nearly twenty years. Anyway, once we lost touch with the colony, one of smaller groups sent in a group of colonial marines. Sort of a human militia. They didn't want the Federation getting too involved in their affairs. You have undoubtedly figured out how Earth humans and colonies in the Earth network view Federation intervention, so draw your own conclusions there. Since Saturday, there's been no contact with the colonial marines, and we've decided to send in an Army Special Forces team for a search and rescue if there are any survivors."

"Then what do you need me for?" Samus asked, although she suspected she knew the answer to that.

"Essentially?" Keaton looked amused. "Clean up. I'm not sure exactly what sort of enemy we are dealing with here, but we may have a very dangerous alien life form on our hands. Do you remember the Nostromo incident?"

"That was fifty-eight years ago, Sir. I'm only thirty-three."

"Right… I forgot humans adhere to such a brief existence." He rolled his eyes. "You're what now… middle aged? How far past your prime are you?"

Samus glared at the Chairman from across the desk. "The only thing I'm past is puberty. I'm nowhere near being middle-aged."

The Alien shrugged her off. "That's none of my concern as long as you are not due to expire within the next year and a half. Back to business, you don't remember the Nostromo incident, but you do remember a year ago when they found the survivors, yes?"

It was Samus's turn to roll her eyes. "Well I wasn't living under a rock at the time, so yes. I remember the survivors. Some human named Ellen Ripley and a cat, if I recall correctly."

"You do. Upon awakening from her cryo-sleep, Ripley described that their ship had been boarded by a hostile life form they picked up on LV-426. Though we have no other eyewitness accounts or documentation, we've recently started paying closer attention to her claims and have dubbed the creature 'Xenomorph'. We believe these xenomorphs may be behind the communication failure with the Earth colony as well as the disappearance of the marines."

"And let me guess," Samus added dryly, "once Special Forces gets out of there, you want me to go in and exterminate your bug problem?"

"Precisely." Keaton's face remained blank. "I'll forward all documentation on the species to you once you leave. And let's call this… another even million, all right?"

"Look." Samus put an elbow up on the desk and palmed her face in exasperation. "I'm not a one-woman genocide machine, despite what I've done for you in the past. Destroying ecosystems and blowing up planets can't be my bread and butter. The Metroids were different because… well, I had a connection to them. Same with the Pirates. But these things? We don't even know what they are! Have we tried negotiations?"

Keaton stared blankly at Samus as a holoscreen flicked onto the surface of the desk. He watched Samus's face as she took in the images it showed her. Human bodies. Rampant destruction. The sounds of some unknown organisms ingesting a human woman as she screamed.

"These," he said as the grizzly scenes played out on the holoscreen, "are the only pieces of footage we were able to obtain from LV-426 after contact went dead." He watched the bounty hunter wince as she watched a human boy be torn limb for limb by some unseen attacker. "By the way they kept themselves out of view, we suspect they knew exactly what the cameras were and sent us this footage on purpose." He hated to be emotionally manipulative, but he knew Samus had a weakness regarding Earth colonies. Something about them haunted her, and she would never be able to get these images out of her head.

"What… what the hell are these things?" Her voice sounded shaken, and she could not pull herself away from the screen as the images looped back to the beginning of the film and began to play all over again.

"We're not sure, but they aren't native to the planet. They were brought over at some point on a ship of unknown origin." When Samus did not say anything, he continued, "Its energy signatures resembled certain spikes we saw on Zebes and Tallon IV."

The bounty hunter looked up at last, her eyes wide and at full attention. "Do you know what they are?"

"We have our suspicions… the energy signatures match the technology of a certain unknown species." Keaton looked at her cunningly. "You, Samus."

"Specifically," she said slowly, "the part of me that isn't human."

"Correct. It looks like your…  _ancestors_  may have had a settlement on LV-426 at one time. I think you are without a doubt the best person to investigate this."

"And wipe out your bug problem." Her voice was firm, and her eyes were angry. Keaton thought she looked like a predator about to strike and commended himself on getting to her.

"Of course, officially, there is no record of this. In a time of peace, there's no way this would get past the legislature, but I think you know as well as I do that we are not dealing with friendly creatures here." He noticed her glance down at the screen as the human boy was torn apart once more.

"I understand."

"Good." The Chairman smiled. "I'll give you a call within the next few days once Special Forces finishes up. Then you'll wait 48 hours and fly in, understood?"

Samus nodded as she stood up and re-activated her powersuit. She turned to leave as she heard Keaton call back to her one more time.

"And Samus…"

She looked back at him.

"You should head down to the spaceport. Apparently, your son arrived an hour ago on the Concord shuttle, and it's causing quite a disturbance."

 


	14. Space

**Chapter 14: Space**

It was not until the spacecraft took off and exited the Earth's atmosphere that Hector truly realized the enormity of what he had just done. Hardly the type to even stay out after curfew, he was suddenly acutely aware of in how dire of a situation he had put himself. With a one-way ticket to a planet he knew next to nothing about and chasing after a woman he had no idea how to find, he knew he had screwed up beyond what he had previously thought possible. Never before had he been to space, and never before had he ever stolen anything from his father. He could not begin to fathom how he had thrown fifteen years worth of trust down the drain in one fell swoop and done the most rash and impulsive thing he could have done.

He pressed him body up against his seat and gripped the arm rests as though his life depended on it as the rocket thrust through the Earth's orbit. His ears popped painfully and his entire body felt sick and off as it adjusted to the switch from real gravity to the artificial gravity and stabilization of the cabin. He thought he would be sick, but just as the worst of it was coming on, the ship broke out of the planet's grip and into a suddenly smoother ride in space. Though he expected something completely different, the boy was amazed to find that the ride became even more comfortable once the craft entered hyperspace, and after a few minutes he felt himself begin to relax.

He was glad to have a seat beside a window, but it was bizarre looking through it in hyperspace. There was nothing but pitch-darkness outside the ship. He had expected at least to see streaks of light the way old movies showed hyperspace to be and wondered how the pilot knew where to go or if it were possible to accidently fly into a planet or a star like this. He had never thought much about space before meeting Samus, but now he found himself wondering if this was what she saw every day and how old she had been the first time she had flown from one planet to another. It made him nervous to realize how little he knew about her, especially now that he would be searching for her. He still had no concept of how large Federation territory was and if she would even still be on Daiban once he got there.

Earlier that evening, after parting with Samus and purchasing the ticket, he had called up his friends and asked them to help him get to the spaceport for his flight. He had booked a seat on the Concord shuttle, the fastest, most direct commercial spacecraft between Earth and Daiban, but he could not drive to the spaceport himself. Instead, Bobby had come by with his beat up hand-me-down car, Hikaru in the back seat. The two boys were shocked to learn he was going to such lengths to find "Rhonda", but they were nearly in awe of his blatant recklessness. Neither of them had ever dared to do such a thing.

He wondered if either of his friends had begun to suspect that his mother was in fact the infamous Samus Aran. Bobby, at least, seemed completely oblivious. At one point, however, Hikaru had nudged him and spoken very quietly.

"Hey, Hector," he had whispered as Bobby was distracted trying to figure out night driving for the first time. "Your mom a merc?"

He had been taken aback by the sudden question, but simply replied "Yeah."

Hikaru nodded and raised an eyebrow. "So… your middle name?"

Hector stared back at his friend, his heart beginning to pump faster. He did not say anything for the rest of the ride to the spaceport.

Despite Hikaru's prying questions, he was glad his friends had accompanied him. It was much easier to have them there than it would have been to make the trip alone. He had elected, however, not to tell Abby where he'd be, a fact he now regretted. It was not that he did not want her to know where he was, but he worried about her father finding out. The last thing he wanted was for General Malkovich to figure out what he had done. Though he would never tell Abby or Samus, the General had always intimidated him, ever since he was a child. There was something about the man's poised and commanding presence that had frightened him when he was younger and still made him feel uneasy.

He must have fallen asleep early on in the flight because when he woke up to the turbulence of re-entry into an atmosphere, he could have sworn it had only just begun. As he snapped to his senses, he looked out of the window again and realized everything had come back into view, no longer distorted by the high speeds of hyperspace.

If Hector had thought he would be sick exiting the Earth's atmosphere, it was nothing compared to what he felt now as the ship thrashed and shook in every direction. He could practically feel his brain vibrating in his skull and his ears popped terribly. He had barely enough time to grab the bag in the seat pocket in front of him before he got sick into it, earning a disgusted look from the obviously veteran space traveler sitting beside him.

It took about an hour from the beginning of re-entry to get the ship landed and docked, and in that time, Hector became sick to his stomach twice more. He was grateful when the cabin doors finally opened and people began to exit the ship that all he had with him was a backpack so he would not waste any time at baggage claim.

The first thing he noticed when he stepped off of the ship was how incredibly heavy his body felt. At first, he thought he might just be weak from dehydration after getting sick so many times, but after a moment, it occurred to him that Daiban likely had a different gravity than Earth did. He had not factored that into his plans, but as he shouldered his suddenly much heavier backpack and headed toward the men's room, he found himself wishing he had thought of it. His ears still stung painfully, and his stomach was not happy, but at least he was on solid ground.

The spaceport looked like any major mass transit hub, at least it did where the shuttle initially pulled up. Once he left the bathroom and headed out into the general portion of the was huge, absolutely massive, with a domed transparent ceiling that must have been fifty feet off of the ground. The boy stared wide-eyed at the denizens of Daiban who passed through. Though he had been on the spacecraft with humans exclusively, he now saw all manners of bizarre creatures shuffling about their business. There had to be a hundred species of Alien life at least.

On one hand, there was a race of tiny, mouse-like creatures that stood no higher than the boy's knee. He saw a few groups that looked like large families wearing clothes and speaking to one another in squeaky voices. They seemed like something straight out of a children's movie. On the other hand, there were also terrifying scaly beasts who stood at least three time's Hector's height and emitted a foul-smelling odor as they skulked past and glared at him with their dozen jeweled eyes. He tried not to stare at anyone, but it was hard not to, particularly at the big guys who looked like they might be at the top of the food chain.

Clutching the straps of his backpack close to his chest and trudging through the heavy gravity, Hector looked around for any signs that might give him a clue where to begin looking for Samus. Walking through the crowd of Aliens was overwhelming, although most paid him no mind. The myriad new smells and noises were an all-out assault on his senses as dozens of different languages rang in his ears. He had to duck and dodge to try to avoid elbows, antennae, and other strange appendages whose functions he did not understand. It was beyond disconcerting when he realized he could not find a single human in the entire crowd, and he thought he might be sick again. Fortunately, that did not happen.

It was a relief when he realized he had made it all the way across the massive atrium and found a bench to sit on close to some jumbo-sized escalators he thought an elephant would probably fit on. He had just sat down and set his bag beside him when one of the bipedal mouse creatures he had seen earlier jumped up onto the steel bench and sat beside him. Hector caught himself staring at the little creature with its big, cartoony eyes and twitchy little nose. It was wearing something that looked like a blue jumpsuit that left its feet and arms exposed.

The Alien noticed him staring and looked back at him curiously. It blinked a couple of times and said something in a strange language he did not recognize.

"I… I'm sorry," Hector stammered, not sure if it would understand him. "I don't know what you're saying…"

"That's all right," it replied suddenly in a voice that sounded like it had swallowed a canister-worth of helium. "Most people in Federation territory speak Fed-Standard 3."

"Fed-Standard 3?" He felt confused until he realized what the mouse was referring to. "You mean English?"

"Is that what you call it on your planet?" The creature laughed. "But yes, that's one of the seven standard languages out here. I take it you've never been off your planet before, huh?"

"No… never." It felt odd talking to what was essentially a giant chipmunk, but he was glad to have someone he could communicate with.

"So what brings you here? You're a human, right?"

"Yeah." Hector smiled. "I'm a human. I'm here because I'm looking for someone… I don't know if you would know them."

"Probably not," it continued in its good-natured tone. "Space is a pretty big place. But I could probably point you in the right direction. What sort of creature?"

"Well, she's a human… mostly." He thought about how to describe Samus. "She might be wearing a suit of armor. She's a bounty hunter. Her name is Samus Aran. Have you heard of her?"

Had the Alien's face not been covered in fur, Hector would swear it turned completely pale at the mention of his mother's name. "S-samus Aran?"

"Yes… you've heard of her?"

"Heh… you'll be hard-pressed to find a soul alive who hasn't." The little creature gulped. "Are you sure you want to find that person? They aren't… they aren't really the type a kid like you should really be around. Bounty hunters in general… they're bad news."

"Well," he continued, not sure what to say. "Samus is different. I know her personally, and I just really need to find her. She's a friend of mine."

The mouse shook its head. "Samus Aran is different, but only in the sense that Samus Aran is much, much worse. They've been through here before… When Samus Aran comes to town, something bad is going down. My advice is to hop back on the ship you rode in on and get back to whatever sheltered little planet you came from."

It was Hector's turn to shake his head. "Negative. I can't do that. I need to find Samus. It's important."

The mouse-creature sighed and swung its comically short legs over the side of the bench. "I don't know where they are, but I can tell you that a lot of bounty hunter types hang out not too far from here. A lot of perps try to flee the planet through this spaceport, so it's not uncommon to see one of them make a capture in here." It shuddered. "Bad place to be when the bullets start flying. I almost think those trigger happy bullies are worse than the criminals themselves, but I digress… there's a bar next door to this building. Bounty hunters and mercs hang out there. I don't know if Samus Aran ever does, but it might be a good place to start."

"Great! Thanks!" Hector grinned, happy for his first real lead. "How do I get there?"

The mouse grabbed Hector's wrist and tapped his watch a couple of times before a holographic map of the area appeared. "Right here," it said as it pointed out a glowing spot on the three-dimensional model. "Just follow the map. You can't miss it."

"Awesome!" Hector jumped up, suddenly wishing he had moved a bit slower as he pulled the heavy bag back onto his back. "Thank you! I won't forget it."

The mouse creature stared uneasily as the boy made his way over to the exit, his attention fixed on the location his watch projected.

It did not take Hector long to find the bar. It was exactly where his watch's locator took him, right next door to the main building of the spaceport. Though Hector was glad to step outside for a minute, he noted that the air was much thinner on this planet than on Earth, and he had to take a minute to put his bag down and catch his breath. Just trying to move on Daiban was absolutely exhausting.

When he straightened back up and re-shouldered his bag, he noticed something very odd about the door to the bar. It appeared to be octagonal in shape and glowed with a strange blue force field. He had never seen anything like it in his life, and he had no idea how to open it. After searching for any kind of knob or switch, he decided to simply try waiting to see how people went in and out of it.

It was not long before a figure clad all in some kind of red armored space suit walked up behind him. The creature was obviously humanoid in structure, and it was only about his height. It glanced at him through its helmet's visor before raising what appeared to be some kind of energy gun. The boy felt his heart skip a beat and was about to run away when he realized the armored figure was pointing the gun at the strange door. After a moment, it shot the door and the force field disappeared as the door opened from the middle outward.

The being glanced at him as though to ask if he would be joining it in the bar. He took the hint and nodded as they walked through the door together and it sealed shut behind him, glowing once more with the strange blue light.

The bar itself was dimly lit, and creature of all sorts sat around the counter or at booths around the room. It was a sparsely-decorated industrial-looking sort of place, but no one in there seemed like the type to care. Many were wearing suits of armor similar to the red clad figure beside Hector, but their structures indicated they were likely not humanoids. Other creatures did not wear armor at all, but their scarred and scaly bodies suggested that they did not need it and were happy to flaunt that fact.

Hector turned back to the humanoid who had let him in, and it looked at him as it pointed to an empty booth in the back corner of the room. Not sure what else to do, the boy nodded and followed the scarlet-clad figure over to the table.

"Thank you," he said as he took a seat across from his new companion. "I appreciate you letting me in."

The red-clad figure stared back at him, wordlessly, until it reached up and grabbed its helmet. He heard a click as the airlock unsealed and the figure pulled off its helmet to reveal the head of a young human woman with long brown hair tied up in a high ponytail.

"It's nothin', kid." She grinned at him, and he noted that she appeared to be a Caucasian female with deep brown eyes almost as dark as her hair.

Hector's eyes widened in shock and relief. "You're a human!"

"What's wrong?" she asked, folding her armored arms over the table. "You never seen a human here before?"

He shook his head. "No… I just came from Earth. This is my first time in space, and you're the first human I've found to talk to." He thought to himself that his luck might finally be turning around.

She laughed, a deep husky sort of laugh. "First time in space? What the hell you doing in a bounty hunter bar?"

"Well… I'm looking for someone."

"Oh?" The woman raised an eyebrow. "What kinda someone?"

"Her name is Samus Aran," he answered with a grin. "Do you know her? She's a bounty hunter too. And a human like us."

She smiled coldly as her eyes took on a curious gaze. "Samus Aran, huh? Yeah, I know her. Heard she mighta got offed when that planet blew up, but that would be too good to be true, huh?"

"Um… I don't think that would be a good thing."

"No," the bounty hunter drawled on, "you Earth kids wouldn't think that was a good thing. For those of us who compete with her for work… well, what is your relation to Samus anyway? She owe you money or something?"

Hector shook his head, starting to feel uncomfortable with the way the woman was eyeing him. "No… she's just my friend."

"Friend?" She practically spat the word as him as she broke into laughter. "You're Samus's friend?"

"Y-yes," the boy replied, unconsciously reaching for his bag as he gauged the distance between himself and the door. "I'm just looking for her so I'd better be going…"

Before he could stand up, the table between him and the woman went flying across the room, and within seconds he found himself on the ground, the bounty hunter's armored knee on his chest and the nose of her gun at his throat. He felt panic well up in him as the woman pressed down on his chest and made it difficult to breathe.

"If you're really Samus Aran's friend," she whispered, leaning into him so they were practically nose-to-nose, "I'll bet that bitch will go to great lengths to get you back, no? Maybe be willing to stay out of this territory for a while? And if you're not actually her friend… well, I'm sure I can find some other use for a little human brat dumb enough to walk in here asking around about—"

There was a sudden explosion just above where Hector lay, and red blood rained down on him as the hunter's body was blow away and fell onto the floor beside him, limp and headless. White-hot terror gripped him as he rolled over and saw the mangled remains of the bounty hunter who had him pinned only moments ago, and he feared for his life as he scrambled to grab his bag and role away from the corpse.

But as he looked up, he realized all of the other hunters in the bar had stood, and not a single one was looking at the dead body on the ground next to the blood-spattered human boy. Instead, all eyes were focused on an armored figure that had just walked through the door. As Hector rolled onto his belly, he realized the shot that killed the woman must have been from this newcomer, and as he looked at them, her realized he recognized the heavy golden and orange armor.

Before him and the rest of the bar stood the form of Samus Aran, but not the blonde woman he had come to know on Earth. Instead, this was the fully armored cyborg he had only ever seen in the media, a legend with whom he never thought he would come face to face. Samus's seven-foot tall form was fierce and imposing, even if some of the other patrons were easily twice her size. Hector tried to look up at her but felt himself shrink beneath her gaze. All he saw was the opaque green visor, nothing to suggest the woman he knew was beneath it.

One of the hunters growled something in an alien language as another shot a fiery blast at Samus from a different direction. However, the experienced hunter dodged easily and fired a missile back in that direction, striking a lizard-like creature square in the chest as it was thrown back against a wall and collapsed on the ground in a smoking mess.

Canon raised and pointing back and forth at everyone in the room, Samus roared something back in a deep, synthesized voice in the same language the first hunter had spoken. Most of the other hunters backed down, hands off of their weapons and visible as they made it clear that the last thing they were looking for was a fight with Samus Aran. Only the vaguely humanoid figure that had shouted at her went for its weapon, but Samus fired a charged plasma shot at him before he could ever draw, and he joined the others on the ground.

After a few moments of silence, Samus stepped forward, her canon still raised and ready to fire, but it was clear no one else would be stupid enough to try attacking the woman who had just felled three bounty hunters in under five minutes. Hector was certain only the first one had been killed as he saw the other two forms moving slowly as they started to regain consciousness. His focus on them did not last long, however, as heavy metal boots stopped just before his face and the massive form of Samus Aran towered over where he lay.

All he could do was stare up at her as he lay on his belly, terrified of the woman he logically knew was his mother but who had just knocked out two warriors and decapitated another one. She just stared down at him for a while, and when it was obvious he was too shocked to stand, she knelt on one knee in front of him and lifted the boy up with her left arm. He felt helpless as she carried him in one arm like a football and kept her canon raised and ready. She only shot it one more time, however, and only to open the door and carry the boy out into the fresh air. He looked around and saw all of the Alien creatures staring at Samus Aran carrying a human boy. He did not know where she was taking him, but he could tell by her silence and the way she moved that she was absolutely furious, and he was certain her anger was not aimed solely at the bar patrons.

 


	15. Rage and Recklessness

Chapter 15: Rage and Recklessness

"Angry" was not the right word for what Samus was feeling.

Irate, furious, enraged… those would have been better terms. But Samus was not thinking about how to describe her feelings. There were simply no words to describe the rage that coursed through her, literally tinting her vision red as she walked through the main thoroughfares of Daiban carrying her son.

Her chest was tight with fury, and her hand was heavy on the triggers inside her cannon. She couldn't take the people staring at them, looking on and putting two and two together that the boy she held was someone important to her. Someone she would kill for. And she was ready to kill again if need be. In fact, it was more difficult to restrain herself from it than it would have been to let loose and bring her wrath upon everyone in the vicinity. But for the fact that her son was watching, she was certain she would have killed every hunter in that bar for allowing that woman to threaten her boy.

Only the weight of Hector in her arm kept her grounded enough to trudge forward without turning back and finishing what she had started in the bar. It disturbed her to feel that way, and she forced herself forward with a tunnel vision for the path back to the garage. Once she got him onto the rental ship, she could begin to sort things out. Right now, she could not even think straight, and she was certain she could not bring herself to speak without shouting.

The boy did not say anything as she carried him, and she was glad for that at least. While she was aware of her ire and hatred for the other hunters and the on-lookers, she was not sure what she felt toward her son. She was glad he was all right, but she was downright furious that he had pulled this stunt in the first place. She didn't know if he had acted alone or if Jack knew or what had happened, but her son was here with her on one of the most populous planets in the galaxy, and everyone could see him with her. It was one of her worst nightmares come to fruition, and all she could think was that by defending him she had essentially signed his death certificate. There was no way her enemies would pass up taking advantage of her attachment to him if they knew.

She paid no mind to the garage attendants as she arrived back at the ship. It was not her own ship, but at least it was private and she'd be able to gather her thoughts shielded from the public eye. She wondered how many tabloids would be posting about her carrying a strange human boy, and she wondered what would become of the body of the woman she had just killed. Fortunately, she knew the other bounty hunters would not be stupid enough to get the police involved. The last thing they wanted was for the authorities to raid their place, and this incident, like every other violent or lethal incident that occurred there, would be swept quietly under the rug.

When they arrived at the ship, Samus dropped the boy unceremoniously to the floor. He landed with a thud and scrambled to get up and back away from the very quiet hunter. But she wasn't looking at him. She seemed to be staring off, lost in her mind, and he was not sure if that was more frightening than her glaring directly at him.

Before he even noticed her moving, the bounty hunter reared up and punched the hull of the ship with a terrifying ferocity. The energy shielding around the ship lit up and crackled green light, but there was a very large, noticeable dent where her fist had collided with it. Letting out a primal yell, the hunter struck the ship again. And again. Savagely and repeatedly, the shielding lighting up and crackling each time until the vessel looked like it had been thoroughly beaten.

Hector shrunk back from the mercenary who seemed intent on punching a hole through her ship. Glancing over, he saw the garage attendants were also watching, albeit at a much safer distance. Samus was yelling and presumably cursing in some strange alien language that sounded almost like bird sounds. She went on like that for a long time before finally seeming to calm down. Lowering her fist, she stared blankly at the ship's hull. Hector knew he could not actually see her expression through her helmet, but she seemed strangely absent and transfixed by the sight of her handiwork. The most frightening part, he realized, was that no part of her resembled the woman who was his mother. Not her appearance or her voice or the way she moved… He almost wondered if this armored figure before him was some other person.

But when Samus finally turned to regard him, he did not question her. Despite how battered the purple ship now looked, a hatch at the bottom of it opened, lowering some kind of platform to the ground. The bounty hunter gestured for Hector to step onto it, and he complied without complaint. She joined him as it raised them both into the ship.

Though it had not completely quelled her rage, beating the hell out of the ship had helped considerably. Samus was still shaking with anger, and she still feared having a violent outburst, but she had gotten some of it out of her system. The inside of the ship, however, was private, and it would keep people on the outside safe from her if she were to snap again. Only her son was with her, and she knew, no matter what state her mind was in, that she would never hurt the boy. Not even if she was mad at his utter stupidity.

Still trying to center herself, Samus walked slowly over to the cockpit and pilot's seat and sat back in it. She closed her eyes, trying to steady her breathing as she dematerialized her powersuit. It would not serve her well to have her weapons fully activated while she was in this state, and it would not help to have a conversation with her son while her face was hidden behind a visor. She placed a hand over her chest and felt her heart beating too rapidly. Eyes still closed, she slowed her breathing and tried to focus on slowing her heart. Before she had deactivated her suit, the visor showed her blood pressure at 155 over 105, and she could not have that. There was pain in her chest she recognized as a remnant of her lung injuries, but she paid it little mind.

"Hector," she said after a moment, pleased that her voice sounded reasonably even. "Come over here." She opened her eyes and sat up in the chair.

The boy stepped forward hesitantly. He could only see the back of Samus's chair at first, but as he approached it and saw her human form, he felt a little more at east. At least he recognized her. She turned her chair around to face him and motioned for him to sit in a passenger seat behind her. He did so silently.

"Hector," she repeated, still much more calmly than she felt. "You don't strike me as an unreasonable sort of boy, so I'm going to give you a chance to explain yourself. Exactly what did you think you were doing by following me to Daiban?"

The sound of his mother's voice helped relax Hector, but only slightly. There was a much sharper edge to this woman than he had ever seen before, and something in her voice sounded like a snake tightly coiled and ready to spring at any moment. "I'm… not sure. I wanted to see you, I guess…"

"Well," she replied coldly, "I guess you got what you wanted."

Hector shrank back into his seat, feeling the gravity of Daiban pulling on him heavily. He wished he were back home on Earth where it was easier to breathe and where he had never done anything so idiotic as following a deadly mercenary to a strange planet. "I'm sorry, Samus."

The bounty hunter shook her head. "I just don't get it… I told you where I was going and why. Why the hell would you do something so stupid and follow me? I know you're smarter than that!"

"I just…" he faltered, lost for words. "I grew up without a mom." The words tumbled from his mouth before he even realized what he was saying, but he sat up more straightly and looked directly at the hunter. "I grew up thinking my mom had abandoned me because she didn't want me, not knowing if she was alive or dead or even on the same planet as me. A week ago, you just crash-landed in my life out of nowhere, and suddenly I have a mom! But she's not a normal mom. She's Samus Aran the superhero mercenary from space! And that's really cool, and I started getting to know her and building a relationship with her, but then out of nowhere, she has to leave me again, and I don't know if she's ever coming back." He glared back at her. "This might have been my last chance to get to know you. I have so many questions…"

Samus found herself growling subconsciously, much to both their shock. "You could have shot me an e-mail like a normal person."

"But I'm not a normal person," he said firmly, not sure where this burst of confidence had come from. "I'm your son. I'm the son of Samus Aran, and you're so brave and strong… I want to show you I can be like you."

Samus paused, not sure how to answer that. She closed her eyes for a moment and steadied her breathing once more. "There's a difference between being brave and being reckless. I'm brave when I have to be… but that doesn't mean rushing head first into danger without thinking about the consequences. That's being reckless." She thought for a moment, the slightest hint of a smile passing over her face. "Although I can certainly be pretty damn reckless too."

Hector grinned slowly, still feeling nervous. "I guess I do take after you then."

"There are better traits you could have gotten… but I guess you must. I know Jack isn't the reckless type." The bounty hunter sighed. "Damn it. I guess you really are my son. I had so been hoping you were more like your dad…"

"Sorry to disappoint you," the boy replied, smiling a little.

Samus just stared at the boy, looking tired at the fury finally left her eyes. "You will never disappoint me, kid. Although your actions did." She shook her head, leaning back in her chair once more. "I left you for fifteen years because I was afraid of what someone might do to you. I don't know what happened between you and that hunter in that bar, but I thought my heart was going to stop when I walked in there and saw her with a gun to your head. I thought I was going to lose you…"

"But you beat her so fast… you saved my life, Samus."

"I was the reason your life was in danger in the first place." She regarded him very seriously. "I take it you were asking around about me? She attacked you once she found out you had some kind of connection to Samus Aran, didn't she?"

The boy nodded. "Yeah… she did. But everything's ok now."

"No." Her eyes narrowed. "It's not. Those people saw me protect you. They know you're important to me. Fifteen years worth of protecting you undone in fifteen minutes. And I just killed a woman and maimed two other people." Killing was not out of the ordinary for the mercenary, but that was not to say she was numb to it. She fought to protect people and save lives; taking lives was simply a side effect of that. But she hated doing it all the same, particularly those of other humans or hunters.

"Samus… I'm sorry…"

"This day could have ended much worse," she said softly, standing up and walking toward the boy. The mercenary helped the boy up from the chair and pulled him into a tight embrace. "Do you understand how dangerous it is now? Do you finally understand why I left you with your father?" She held him close, as though he would disappear if she let go.

Their tender moment was short-lived, however, as the screen above the dashboard began to ring and flicker. Letting Hector go, Samus turned back to it, tapping her watch to answer the call. The screen flickered to life as the image of Jack and Adam appeared above the console.

"Samus?" Jack asked, only able to see the bounty hunter as she sat in the pilot's seat once more and turned to face him. "Do you have a minute?" Adam was in the background looking concerned but he did not say or do anything to indicate his presence.

"I do," the bounty hunter replied, her face stern and annoyed-looking. "And I think I know what you're calling about."

Hector stepped forward, now in the view of the cameras. "Hi, Dad. Hello General Malkovich."

"Hector?" Jack looked surprised as he stared at his son in disbelief. "Hector, what are you doing there? Samus, why the hell did you bring my kid to space without my permission? What the hell were you thinking?"

"First off," Samus began, her voice dripping acid, "he's our kid. Not just yours. Second, I did not bring him to space. I found him here. How the hell did you let our kid buy a ticket to outer space, Jack? Don't you remember how dangerous it is out here? Do you have any idea what I had to do to find and rescue him today?"

"Rescue?" Jack's normally soft tone had returned, although he still seemed angry with Samus. "What do you mean rescue? And what did you teach him to make him do something like steal my credit card and fly to space?"

Samus rolled her eyes. "What makes you think he learned that from me?"

"I don't know. Fifteen years, he's a good kid, and he spends one week with you… has he learned how to hotwire a spacecraft yet? Or shoot whiskey?"

Samus growled again and muttered something in her bird language. "Why would I teach him any of those things? For goodness sake, Jack, I behaved better the week I was on Earth with you two than I have at probably any other point in my life! Adam could tell you that! I don't want the kid to grow up and be like me!"

"Then why is our son in space after committing a felony's-worth of credit card fraud?"

The bounty hunter's fist lashed out and slammed the dashboard so hard Hector and Jack both jumped. "I'm just as pissed off about that as you are. Probably more. Believe me. I've done nothing this child's whole life but try to protect him, and even as reckless as I am, you can't deny that! Why would I try to get him to come to space or teach him how to steal?"

"I just don't know, Samus." Jack looked tired and exasperated. "I just want him to come home. Safe. Can you bring him home?"

The mercenary's face softened, and she nodded. "I can do that. I have a couple of days before my next mission. Just need to head down to Aliehs-III and get my real ship, and then we'll be on our way to Earth, and he'll be safe and sound with you in no time." She nodded to Adam. "I'll get him back okay."

Jack looked suddenly relieved. "Thank you, Samus. And thank you for finding him. I was worried sick and kept thinking the worst…"

The hunter shrugged and brushed him off. "If there's one thing I'm good at, it's finding people and delivering them places."

She disconnected the call, not feeling like bothering with goodbyes. She knew Jack was just getting overly emotional because he was worried, but her temper was dangerous and already in critical territory. Slowing her breathing could only do so much.

"We're going to Aliehs-III to get your gun ship?" Hector asked, curiosity in his big green eyes. "Is that another planet?"

"Hmmm?" Samus smiled, glad to have her son by her side despite the circumstances of how he got there. "Oh yes. I think you'll like this one better."

The boy grinned. "That's really cool. I really want to see your ship."

"It's one of a kind," the bounty hunter boasted proudly. She had had a hand in designing both of her ships, and both utilized a mix of Federation and Chozo technology.

"Do I have to go back home right away?"

The mercenary shrugged. "I feel like I need to say yes to that because it the responsible thing to say, but I do kind of like having you around. Plus, there's that other part of me now that wants to keep you here and teach you to hotwire spacecraft and shoot whiskey. Just to piss off your father."


	16. Samus's Home

**Chapter 16: Samus's Home**

Aliehs-III was basically the polar opposite of Daiban. The tiny planet was scarcely inhabited save for a few small businesses that mainly catered to those passing through. Samus pulled the banged-up rental ship into a privately owned garage where she docked it and stepped off. Clad once more in her powersuit, she held Archer's leash in her free hand as she led the dog to their destination. Her cannon arm, however, was aimed directly at the back of a "prisoner" she was transporting through Federation territory in order to collect a bounty.

As the two people and the dog exited the rental ship, one of the garage attendants looked over the damage to the hull and shot the bounty hunter a strange looked.

Turning to face the man, Samus glared at him through her opaque visor. "Bill me," she muttered before turning back to her captive.

Hector felt awkward walking through the alien garage with his hands bound behind his back in a sort of metallic restraint that covered both of his forearms. A strangely electrified sort of grappling beam attached him to Samus's waist, and as he walked he could feel the nose of her cannon pressing into his back steering him. He was wearing a poorly-fitted black jumpsuit that looked like it belonged to a set of scuba gear and what he thought was a motorcycle helmet. It was not the best disguise, but it was what Samus had come up with on short notice to keep his identity secret. And it was the best she could find at a sporting goods store near the spaceport on Daiban.

The concept was laughably simple: No one in the bar knew Hector had been looking for Samus except the woman Samus killed. For all anyone knew, Samus might have gone in, guns blazing, trying to capture a wanted criminal before the other woman could. Her bad-tempered, heartless reputation would certainly lend itself well to making people believe she would take out a fellow hunter over a bounty. That practice was actually extremely common amongst the cutthroat mercenaries. All she had to do now was parade her latest catch around the shipyards at Aliehs-III just enough to make people believe she had recently made a capture.

It felt strange to Samus to lead her son through a shipyard with a gun at his back, but it worked well enough to accomplish her goals. She wondered vaguely if she should ground him or make him do push-ups or some other such punishment for behaving so recklessly, but the truth was she did not have the slightest idea how to go about disciplining a teenager. Besides, maybe vomiting repeatedly on a commercial flight, getting thrown to the ground, having a gun pressed up against his head, and then being led around at gunpoint like a criminal was enough to make him think twice before doing anything rash next time. Of course, Samus also knew if he was anything like her that would not be enough to deter him in the future.

Despite his current predicament, Hector liked Aliehs-III much better than Daiban from the moment he stepped off of the rental ship. For one thing, the air was much easier to breathe here than on the other planet, and for another thing, the gravity was much less. It was even much less than it was on Earth, and he was certain that were he not chained to the bounty hunter's hip, he would be able to jump considerably higher and maybe pull off a few mid-air flips in the process. Even as he was now, his steps were much lighter and bouncier than usual, and his captor did not seem to mind the new spring in his step.

When they finally reached the garage space Samus rented out, Hector was beyond excited to finally see his mother's legendary gunships. Samus input a code to open the heavy metal door that sealed her private space away from the rest of the shipyard. Once they were inside, the door closed and automatically re-locked itself. As they walked forward and the ships came into view, Hector immediately recognized their sleek golden design, similar to the armor his mother wore. One ship was more recognizable. It was the roundish golden starship with a green windshield. It was shaped similarly to Samus's helmet and had three thrusters on the bottom. The second ship was set farther back, and while the starship felt familiar and comfortable, the second ship looked like an all-out tool of war. Its coloring was similar to the first, but it was divided into three segments, two of which looked like rockets on either side of the main cabin. It had an overall sharper look to it, and he could see guns mounted on either side.

"We'll be using the first ship," Samus said now that they were out of earshot of anyone else. When the boy gave her a questioning look, she dismissed him with a wave of her hand. "Everything on the first ship is legal."

With the press of a button on her cannon, the grapple beam that connected the boy to her waist disappeared, and she snapped off his cuffs. Without a word, she lifted him up in her left arm and hopped onto the top of the ship. Setting him down, she hopped back off and did the same for Archer, although she had to chase down the poor dog first. It seemed he was still frightened by her armored form. Once all three were atop the ship, the hatch lit up as though greeting the ship's owner, and it lowered Hector and the dog gently into the main cabin. Samus hopped down behind them, much more used to the ship than either of the other two.

Once the hatch went back up, the lights of the air chamber turned on, and the room began automatically adjusting for pressure and oxygen levels. It did not take long for it to determine that the three figures were non-hostile and it opened the hatch that led into the next room. Hector, Samus, and Archer stepped into what appeared to be a medical bay with a long steel table, but the bounty hunter quickly ushered them out of it and into the next room. Looking over his shoulder, the boy saw what he thought looked like a holding cell, but remembering his mother's profession, he averted his gaze and followed her lead.

Out of the medical bay, the three were now in the main living quarters, and the area greatly surprised Hector. It was not exactly a luxurious place, but the quarters had a certain homey feel to them. They were in a very small living room of sorts with a soft looking green couch and a blank wall obviously dedicated to be a holoscreen. The floor was like carpeting, but Hector did not recognize the material as anything they had on Earth. On the other side of the room was a small kitchen with linoleum floors, a stove, a few basic appliances, and a long counter separating it from the living room. There were two tall chairs on the outside of the counter so people could sit and eat at it, although they looked like they were hardly ever used. He could not imagine Samus had company on her ship very often.

There were two doors leading off of the main room, one of which was the bathroom. It was a very basic bathroom with a toilet, sink, and bath/shower combo. The other door led to Samus's sleeping quarters but she declined to show him what was behind that door. The hatch leading to the cockpit was much more obvious, and she let him look around in it for a little while before he came back to the living space. The cockpit itself was fairly similar to the first ship, except Samus's pilot chair looked larger and more comfortable. There were two other seats behind it for passengers, although once again, they looked like they had rarely if ever been used.

"So what do you think?" the bounty hunter asked as she dematerialized her suit and went over to help her son out of his ridiculous get-up.

"I like it," Hector said, freeing his head from the helmet and looking around the living space again. "Is this where you spend most of your time?"

"Mostly the cockpit." The bounty hunter shrugged as she pulled off her gloves and unlaced her combat boots. "No shoes in here, by the way," she said slipping off her own boots and placing them near the hatch to the medical bay. "I don't have a lot of rules, but I hate shoes in the house." She stretched lightly, much more comfortable in just her flight suit and socks. It had been nice meeting family and staying with Adam for the past month, but it was good to be home. Though she had an apartment somewhere in deep space, she much preferred living like a nomad and this ship felt more like home to her than anywhere else in the galaxy.

After a little while, Samus went into the cockpit, leaving Hector to his own devices as she piloted the ship. The take off was not nearly as rough as it had been on the commercial ship, and it was even smoother than the rental. Even exiting Aliehs-III's atmosphere was comfortable and save for a bit of vibration, it was almost undetectable. Samus's ship was clearly top of the line in comfort, and the boy wondered if she also had issues with motion sickness. He realized that was a silly notion, however, when he remembered the fact that she was often shown performing multiple flips in a row to catapult herself into the air. Perhaps that had more to do with the fact that she was no longer human though.

Samus stayed alone in the cockpit for a while, so Hector turned on the holoscreen and began flipping channels. There was nothing very interesting on. Samus did not seem to have many channels, and he realized she probably rarely watched television. He settled on a new program in which human political analysts were debating whether or not genotype testing should be mandated in public schools. There were the usual arguments about whether it was an invasion of the rights of semi-humans, particularly those of the beta-class whose population was growing more numerous every year. Alpha-class, of course, meant an individual was purely human while betas were the most common semi-human type. Gammas were more rare and were generally either genetically modified or hybrids of a more obscure alien race. No one on the news program seemed too concerned the betas, and while a couple were hesitant about gammas, it was the general consensus that delta-class semi-humans were a problem.

Deltas were semi-humans of unknown origin or of species deemed too dangerous to be allowed into galactic civilization. Generally regarded as dangerous, unpredictable variables, most were genetically modified in illegal ways, and only a few of them were born as hybrids. Horrifying rumors circulated about deltas including the popular theory that many of them would bleed pure acid or that they were infused with Space Pirate genetics. Hector was not sure how much of that was true, but human society generally feared gammas and deltas. He knew Earth had a strict embargo on delta-class immigration, and it was difficult for a delta to even get permission to visit the highly-protected planet. Every now and then, news programs would air debates about whether or not gammas and deltas should be allowed to serve in the military or attend public schools as they could potentially be a hazard to other humans. Hector had never given much thought to the topic as he had only ever met a couple of semi-humans in his life, and they had been of the beta-class. Sitting in the cabin of his mother's ship, however, he wondered what sort of class Samus would fall into. Or what class he would be, for that matter, now that he knew his mother was not purely human.

When Samus finally came back into the living room, she made a face and turned off the holoscreen, clearly not wanting to listen to the debate. She looked over to her son as though trying to figure if she wanted to say something, but she changed her mind and walked over to the kitchen instead. Samus was no gourmet chef by any means, and most nights she just at MRE's if she ate at all. However, she knew her son needed food, and she had promised Adam that she would eat at least once in a standard day so she decided to try to whip up something a little tastier. White rice was easy enough, and she had some frozen fish and vegetables, so she decided to thaw that out and make a cheap version of sushi rolls.

She worked in silence, not really used to preparing food in the ship's efficiency kitchen, particularly not for more than one person. But she owned dishes and utensils, so it made sense to use them every now and then. By the time she brought the meal out to her son, she had about a dozen awkwardly rolled sushi pieces on each plate, two sets of chopsticks, and a small bowl for soy sauce. Hector was genuinely surprised by the effort Samus had put into making dinner, and he was more surprised when she sat on the floor to eat it instead of the counter. Not bothering to ask any questions, he followed suit, sliding off of the couch and onto the floor to share a meal with his mother. The sushi rolls were surprisingly good considering she had used frozen ingredients, and he wondered if her ship's freezer was different than the ones he was used to. Everything tasted so fresh.

He also wondered if she had any other strange customs on board the ship, but mostly he was happy to be floating through space, sharing a meal with his mother. It had been an extremely long and stressful day, and they were both glad for a few moments of peace.

* * *

Jack had gone home by the time Adam Malkovich retired to his office. What was supposed to be a peaceful day at home had turned into an annoying nightmare. Samus's departure had gone smoothly enough, although it had been difficult for him to say good-bye to the bounty hunter. He knew she was more than capable of taking care of herself, but it was the times when she chose not to that concerned him. His worries were not unfounded. The last time he had met up with her after a long absence had been right before the two of them came to Earth, and she had let herself get into a horrible state after the destruction of Zebes. Insomnia kept her up for days at a time, and she had lost a considerable amount of weight from not eating for long stretches at a time. She was so on-edge a lot of officials in the Federation believed she had become dangerously unstable, but Adam knew exactly what was happening with her at the time.

And he knew how much better she was doing now. Although he was certain some poor inanimate object had experienced the brunt of her wrath, he was very pleased with how calm she had seemed during the Hector incident earlier that day. Particularly on the phone call with Jack. She may have slammed her fist into the dashboard at one point, but overall, she had remained cool and collected. Even the boy seemed all right with her. Jack worried about his son being with her alone in space, particularly given what he remembered about her temper from her Army days. Her punch to the dashboard had worried him, but Adam had reassured the man his son was safe with Samus. Simply put, she loved the child more than life itself and would never do anything to hurt him. Samus was the sort who would lay down her life for someone she loved without a second thought. No harm was coming to a hair on that boy's head.

The General was just sitting down to start on some work when his watch began to beep. Annoyed, he glanced at the called ID expecting to see Jack or Samus, but to his surprise, it was a military phone number.

"Hello?" he answered, picking up the call from his earpiece.

"General Malkovich?" a woman's voice responded from the other end.

"Speaking." He recognized the voice as belonging to General Harper, though he was surprised to be getting a call from her.

"I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time," Harper continued, although it was clear from her tone she did not actually care. "I have some urgent news for you directly from the Secretary of Defense."

Adam raised his eyebrows. "You have my full attention."

"The colonial marines sent in to investigate the disappearance of the Earth Colony on LV-426 have also disappeared. The threat on that planet was clearly beyond what anyone could have predicted. We may be dealing with danger levels unseen since the Space Pirate War. Chairman Keaton and Secretary Green want to send in Army Special Ops Unit 161."

General Malkovich nodded. "Unit 161 is a good choice. Very efficient. Colonel Nelson and his troops are some of the best the Federation's got."

"Well," Harper continued, more slowly than before, "that's where things get tricky. It seems Colonel Nelson will be out of commission for a little while. Some accident on a beach. I don't have all of the details."

Adam pursed his lips into a thin line, already knowing where this conversation was going. "Then who are they planning to send in Nelson's place to lead 161?"

"That's where Secretary Green had decided you will come in. You've already done an extensive amount of work researching and analyzing the LV-426 situation. Plus your experience with hostile Aliens during the Space Pirate War is unmatched. The higher-ups think you would be a real asset on this mission and could command the unit more effectively than anyone else."

Adam was silent for a moment. Something did not feel right about what Harper was saying, and he wondered why she was calling him instead of Secretary Green or Chairman Keaton. "Of course I accept the mission. If the Federation wants me to head to LV-426, I will oblige."

"Thank you for understanding, General Malkovich. I know this is an unusual situation." General Harper paused for a moment. "And between you and me, leave that dog of yours at home."

"What? I don't have a— oh. You mean Samus?" Adam frowned. He hated when people referred to her as a dog, particularly when they implied that she belonged to him in some capacity.

"Exactly. The last thing we need is to get that mercenary involved. This is a military matter, not something we need a bounty hunter to come sniffing around in. It's a very delicate situation."

Adam wanted to lash out at her, to defend Samus and point out how ignorant the other general sounded, but he held his tongue. It would do no good to have words with the woman when he was supposed to be receiving official orders from the Federation. He finished the call politely and without incident, but the moment he hung up, he dialed the number he had for the Secretary of Defense himself. If Secretary Green confirmed the legitimacy of what General Harper had said, he would leave for LV-426 in the morning.

 


	17. Landslide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Completely unrelated to Metroid, there is some historically, record-breaking flooding happening right now in Louisiana in what is being called the worst natural disaster in the US since Superstorm Sandy. There's a good deal of personal significance to me, particularly in the fact that the animal shelters have been destroyed and they've been forced to release the dogs and cats because there was nothing else to do with them before the flood waters came in. There has been an amazing amount of support from the community in helping to rescue people, dogs, and cats, but the devastation is still catastrophic. If you are able, please keep the families of Louisiana in mind, and if you are able to help in anyway, I encourage you to contact the Red Cross or whatever other charity/disaster aid group you can. I've noticed a lot of the media hasn't been showing a lot about it, and I just felt like saying something given that I lived there for the better part of a decade at one point and it's affected a lot of people I know.
> 
> Anyway, real life aside, Happy belated birthday to Samus! Federation Force comes out Friday. Here's the next chapter of Spawn. Enjoy!

Chapter 17: Landslide

 

Samus leaned back in her pilot’s chair, staring out at the silent, infinite expanse of space. For the first time in over a month, she was truly home and back in her element. Solitude.

Hector was asleep on the couch. Her twenty-four hour clock informed her that it was night on Earth, and she had insisted the boy keep as close to a regular schedule as he could. Besides, he was exhausted from the events of the day, and the sleep would serve him well.

Samus was tired as well, tired in a profound way. She had not done anything physically draining, but it had been a rough day mentally. Rough few days, actually. She realized she had not slept since the morning of her nightmare two days ago. So much for her promise to Adam that she would try to maintain a healthy lifestyle by eating and sleeping regularly. While it was true that her body did not need as much sleep as a human’s did, she had been keeping human hours more or less when she had been staying with Adam, but she had been recovering then from her battle and a nasty flare up of her post-traumatic stress. As of late, she had been feeling much better on both fronts.

Until tonight. The ship was “parked” more or less in an uninhabited area of space as the bounty hunter stared at the bottle of whiskey in her grasp. She hadn’t opened it yet, although she had intended to. She knew what gave her pause, however, as she thought of her passenger asleep in the cabin. She was a terrible mother as it was, and the last thing she needed was for him to wake up and catch her reeking of booze. That would be all Jack needed to hear when his son got home.

She sighed, placing the bottle up on the dash. It stared back like it was judging her, and she knew it was probably time for her to get some sleep as well. That would not be happening any time soon though, not the way her mind was racing. Perhaps she was being too hard on herself, but she knew today’s events had been her own fault. Jack had been right about that at least. Fifteen years and the kid had never set so much as a toe out of line, and then she flies in one day and he’s practically committing felonies. If it hadn’t been for her selfish desire to meet him, he never would have ended up with a gun pressed to his head, and he never would have had to watch her kill that other hunter.

At this point in her life, Samus was numb to such imagery. It didn’t matter to her whether the hunter lived or died after what she had done to Hector, but the boy never should have had to see that. Samus wondered if he would be plagued by nightmares now, the same way she was. Even in her waking state, she could not stop seeing the scene over and over. Like a bad song she couldn’t get out of her head. The image of her son on the ground with a bounty hunter pressing a gun up against him. Samus’s own missile flying out and bursting the woman’s skull as pieces of her flew everywhere.

Other images accompanied it. Red-golden eyes watching her. Smoke. Burning afloraltite. Death. She watched as flashes of other people’s deaths flickered through her vision superimposed over the image of her own son. It chilled her deep in her chest, the visions too graphic and too real. Even if she knew it was false, even if she knew she was on her ship, in her chair, and her son was safe in the cabin behind her… she couldn’t unsee the rogue thoughts that intruded on her mind.

It was one of those nights. The bounty hunter looked down at her hand, realizing she had taken back the whiskey like it was her security blanket. It glared up at her judgmentally, but she ignored it as she twisted off the top and broke the seal. The scent of the sweet, burning liquid filled her senses and she drank it in as though it were the liquid itself. But she didn’t drink the whiskey. Not right now. No matter how tempting it was.

Her life had been so different at her son’s age. Every day had been a fight to survive on the streets of Calliope IX. She could not help thinking back to that first night, not the first night she had been on the planet, but the first night she had actually slept.

She had been on Calliope IX for three days at that point. She had counted, mostly because the day and night cycle was the only thing familiar to her after leaving Zebes. She hadn’t wanted to leave, of course, but the pirates had come and the Chozo had no way to defend themselves anymore. Well, that was not entirely true, she thought bitterly. They had their weapon, their half-grown pitiful excuse for a warrior who had never completed her training. Their Hatchling. It had been her job to protect them, but she had failed, crumbling to her knees in terror at the sight of Ridley. And for some reason, instead of letting her die, Old Bird and Grey Voice had thrown themselves into danger, dragging her from the battlefield and throwing her into a shuttle they sent off to the mostly-human planet of Calliope IX.

She had still been a child, although that concept was lost on her as it often was at fourteen. Even her armor had not been the fully powered suit she now possessed. But she had taken her loss hard, blaming herself entirely for the fall of Zebes and the demise of the Chozo. She barely spoke any of the Federation standard languages, only able to remember some of her native tongue from K-2L, and navigating the foreign planet had been difficult and terrifying. She may have had her training and her powersuit, but those were better suited to survive a war, not to survive a city full of civilians. She didn’t sleep at all those first three nights. Nothing was familiar, and nothing felt safe as she just ran from place to place realizing there was no place left in the universe she could call home. Realizing there was no one left who even spoke her language.

Samus put a hand to forehead recalling that time. Her memories were spotty, and all she really remembered was the guilt, her feelings of failure. When she had started her training as a warrior, she had vowed to herself that she would never be the helpless little victim she had been during the K-2L massacre. But once again, even with her armor and her weapons, she had found herself kicked to the side like a rag doll as the same enemies took her home, and she was helpless as she watched it burn and lost every one in her life. Staring up at the disapproving bottle, Samus wanted a drink so badly in that moment, seeing the faces of her Chozo family, snippets of her early life flickering in and out clear as reality but gone in an instant.

On the fourth night on Calliope IX, there was a massive thunderstorm. She would come to learn that it was not such an unusual occurrence on the planet, but it was so violent, it put even the worst weather on Zebes to shame. Freezing rain felt like it was cutting her skin as the wind kicked up and it shifted from showers into a torrential downpour. Young Samus was frozen to her core feeling the ice drops slash across her bare arms. At that point, she still only had the white garments she had been wearing during her training the day the pirates attacked. Her pants, tank top, and boots were now dirty and darkened with the soot and filth of the city as her hair and clothes clung to her in the rain. She needed to find shelter and find it quickly.

That was when she had committed her first real crime. Breaking and entering. Little had she known at the time it would only be the first of many. It had been simple enough as she watched the wealthy-looking family drive away from their house in their hover car. Their front door was locked, of course, and she couldn’t break in through the front without anyone seeing her. Instead, she let herself into their backyard through their fence and found what she had hoped for. A window leading down to the basement. Iron bars protected the window, but they were nothing for Samus to bend, half-starved though she was. And of course, since the family had never thought anyone capable of getting through the bars, the window was not locked, and the scrawny girl slipped in easily, closing it behind her.

Lowering herself, she stepped onto a couch and then down onto the basement floor. It was not anything fancy, just a boiler and laundry room that had been partially been turned into little den with a couch facing a holoscreen. But it was warm and dry, and the girl was thrilled to find a well-stocked refrigeration unit. Though she was not familiar with human food, she was absolutely ravenous and everything looked good.

She never bothered going upstairs, awkwardly justifying in her sleep deprived state that she was only using a small part of their house and only taking enough to survive. The family had plenty. They wouldn’t miss a few things. After helping herself to a good meal and stripping out of her filthy, drenched clothes, Samus stole a pair of jeans and a blouse from the family’s clean, folded laundry and lay down on the couch bellow the window. She stared up through it and the bent bars at the angry sky flashing with lightning, thinking of the home she had left on the other side of those clouds and the family she would never see again. Though guilt-ridden, exhausted, and her warrior’s spirit all but broken, that was the night Samus had decided she would return to Zebes someday and take it back from her attackers. Someday. Some distant far off day.

But that night in the basement had been nearly twenty years ago, Samus thought now, reaching for the bottle a third time and cradling it in her arms. Ridley and the Space Pirates were dead by her hand and Zebes was no more. So much had happened since that night. She was so much stronger than she had been then.

 _Time makes you bolder,_ she thought with a hum to the tune of that song. _Children get older._

And she was older now too. And she was now the mother of a fifteen year old boy who she swore would never know what it was like to be so lost and so desperate he would have to break into a stranger’s home and steal from them. She may not have been the best mother or even a good one, but she would walk through the flames of Hell and hold the hand of Death before she saw any harm come to her child.

That had been easier to think of during the Space Pirate War. Though she had never been directly a part of his life, a part of her always felt like she was doing her job as a mother by protecting him from afar and fighting those battles. Things had been much more straightforward then. The right thing was easy. Kill the Space Pirates. Protect people. While she would never wish for another war, there had been something comforting about the black and white morality of it. Being a mother, like this, was harder. She didn’t know what was right anymore.

She opened up the whiskey bottle and took in the aroma once more before she closed it again. Standing up, she turned and placed the bottle back in the compartment behind her. She’d save that for another night. She still felt sick to her stomach thinking over and over what would have happened to her son if she had arrived only a few moments later.

Heading back to her pilot’s chair, she lingered for a moment, opening and peering through the hatch at where her son slept on the couch. He was safe. Never mind what could have been. Never mind what almost was. Today had not been K-2L or Zebes. She had protected her son. Her family hadn’t been taken from her. And it never would be again. Smiling, the bounty hunter closed and locked the hatch and returned to her seat.

Reluctantly, she pulled a bottle of her medication from the glove compartment. She turned it over in her hand, reading the various labels, glancing over her name and the name of her psychiatrist. How she hated the damn pills. Unfortunately, she knew they worked, having gone on and off of them multiple times in the past fifteen years. But she wanted to be better and to be able to take care of the people who were now in her life, and she couldn’t do that if she was flying into rages and punching through space ships or staying up days at a time trying to forget the thoughts she couldn’t help remembering.

Dry-swallowing two of the pills, Samus put the medication bottle back and dimmed the lights of the cockpit as she reclined her chair. She might not have been the best mother in the world, but she was trying to figure out and do the right thing, and that was a start. It still took a long time for her to fall asleep, but she managed eventually. And much to her delight, she didn’t dream.


	18. Stolen Time

**Chapter 18: Stolen Time**

 

Samus awoke to one of her favorite things in the universe: the smell of coffee brewing. While it took her a moment to gather her bearings, she knew right away that she was on her ship in her pilot’s chair. Waking up always went more smoothly aboard her ship. Of all the places in the galaxy, it was the safest and most familiar to her.

Glancing over at the clock display on her dashboard, she realized she had slept in until what would have been noon Earth time. In space, there was no concept of day and night, but she had been trying to use Earth time for now since it would be the most familiar to her son.

Stretching, Samus stood up with a yawn. She slipped herself out of the tee shirt she had slept in and threw on a pair of jeans, a brassiere, and a plain white tee shirt. She wouldn’t be working for at least a couple more days so there was no need to put on a flight suit or anything. Still, as always, she holstered her gun on her hip. Even if her ship was safe, she still liked having the weapon by her side.

Opening the hatch, the mercenary stepped out of the cockpit and into the small living space to see her son over in the kitchen brewing coffee. When he saw she was up, he looked over at her and grinned.

“Good morning, Samus,” he said as coffee poured into a mug. “I made breakfast for us.”

The bounty hunter raised her eyebrows as she made her way over to Hector. “You did, huh?” She was not even sure she had anything on the ship she would count as breakfast food, but she was pleasantly surprised to find that he had found some bread, toasted it, and spread some fig preserves over them.

“Yeah,” the boy nodded, handing Samus the cup of coffee. “I figured you’d be up soon and it’s the least I can do after all the trouble I caused yesterday.”

Samus smirked and ruffled the boy’s hair as she took the mug and walked over to the couch. Hector followed close behind with two plates of toast and set Samus’s on the coffee table. The bounty hunter ignored the food though as she favored the mug and took long sips of the steamy hot beverage. She used to often sit on her couch in silence and savor a cup or two of coffee in the morning, assuming she did not have a mission of course. However, she had gotten out of that habit toward the end of the Space Pirate War, a few months before her mission to SR-388. Now, she thought perhaps it was time to add quiet coffee time to her morning routine again when she wasn’t working. And it seemed like she might be working a lot less in the future now that the war was over.

Hector took a seat on the couch beside his mother as Archer trotted over and laid at her feet. The mercenary reached down and scratched the dog’s ears as she spoke to him in Chozo. He son listened in, wondering what she might be saying to the dog and if perhaps he would ever learn her strange language. For Samus, it was nice to speak in the language she grew up with. There was no one left alive who spoke it, but she often talked to herself in Chozo when no one was around, and she still frequently thought in Chozo when she had been away from society for long periods.

The two enjoyed their breakfasts in silence for a few minutes. It was a peaceful morning. Nothing blowing up. No emergencies. Nowhere either of them needed to be right away, although Samus knew she should technically bring the boy back home to his father. But Jack had spent every morning with his son for the past fifteen years, and this was her first time. She decided to be a little selfish for once.

“Samus,” Hector asked as his mother stood up to help herself to a second cup of coffee. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Hmm?” The bounty hunter turned and raised an eyebrow as she popped the coffee pod into the machine. “You know you always can.”

“Right… um, do you always sleep in the cockpit?”

Samus paused for a moment, watching the liquid fill her mug. “Most of the time, yeah.”

“But you have bedroom?”

The mercenary grunted as she took her mug and headed back to the couch. There were a lot of reasons why she preferred sleeping in her pilot’s chair to sleeping in a bed, and she had been doing it for so long she forgot it was unusual. “I guess I just like to be ready for anything. If something happened and I was back in the bedroom, I wouldn’t be able to get to the controls and respond as quickly.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” He thought for a moment. “If you sleep there tonight, can I sleep in your bed then? The couch is a little short…”

That caught the bounty hunter off guard. It was one thing to talk about why she preferred the pilot’s chair, but it was another thing to think of letting someone else in her bed. There was not anything wrong with it per se, but the room held a sort of dark feeling for Samus given how frequently she had woken up from nightmares in it or awoken to find her ship was under attack. Sleeping in the bedroom had taken on an almost superstitious taboo to her and she hated the idea of her son in there, although she knew logically it was the better option.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” she finally said after a moment. “I stockpile weapons in there and there isn’t much room.”

“Oh.” Hector sounded disappointed, but Samus wouldn’t budge on the issue.

“You know, kid,” she said after a minute, welcoming a change of subject. “I know I’m supposed to be really pissed off at you for stealing your dad’s credit card and doing the dumb shit you did yesterday, but it is kind of nice having you here. Even if the living quarters are a little tight. I always hoped I could show you space some day… albeit under better circumstances.”

Hector grinned. “I’m glad I got to come out here too. It’s nice… I showed you my world. I finally get to see yours.”

Samus grimaced, recalling the scene in the bar. “I wish I could say there are nicer parts of my world for me to show you, but there really aren’t. Well, maybe some of the planets I visit. Those can be cool.” She recalled the amazing landscapes of Tallon IV and the mystical Luminoth of Aether. Those would have been great worlds to show her boy if she had more time with him. “Maybe I’ll take you to one someday. If your father doesn’t get a restraining order against me first.” She laughed. “Poor Jack is still probably worrying his head off.”

“Yeah…” Hector’s voice fell as he glanced off to the side. “I still feel bad about that.”

“It was pretty clever though, I gotta say.” Samus smirked between sips of coffee. “Getting his card, finding a way to the spaceport, managing to even find a bounty hunter bar on a foreign planet. While I don’t _approve_ of your actions, you’ve got a good sense of resourcefulness to you and a strong will when it comes to getting what you want. Just don’t tell your father I said that.”

“Think I’d make a good bounty hunter?”

Samus nearly spit out her coffee, but she swallowed it quickly looking like she was about to gag. “God forbid! No. No! You don’t go getting that idea in your head!” She looked downright horrified as she stared at her son. “Go to college. Become an accountant. Make sure your worst occupational hazards are eyestrain and paper cuts.” She glared at Hector. “Do not even think about becoming like me.”

Hector laughed. “Don’t worry. I don’t think I could be like you even if I wanted to. Besides, I’m only human, right?”

Samus nodded, still eyeing the boy suspiciously. “I meant that, you know. I don’t want you getting it in your head that you need to follow in my footsteps because I’m some kind of legend or whatever. I never had a choice in what I became. You do. You can do whatever makes you happy and have a family. You can buy a house and put paint on the walls, and you can plan for a future.”

“Do you really not like doing what you do?”

The mercenary smiled sadly. “That’s a very complicated question. On one hand, I love that I have the ability to protect people in ways that no one else can. On the other… well, I’ve missed out on a lot of things.”

“And you can do what you because you’re part Chozo, right? But if that’s the case, how come I’m not part Chozo too?”

Samus laughed and took another sip of her coffee. “I used to wonder the same thing, but Adam explained it to me. I was born human, and mammalian females are born with all of their eggs pre-packaged so to speak. So all of your genetic info was there before the genetic engineering started, so you are 100% human even though I’m not anymore.”

“Heh.” Hector looked disappointed. “Gotta say, it would have been cool to find out I’m part super-powered alien.”

Samus was about to say something when her phone began to ring. Muttering a nasty string of Chozo obscenities, she glanced over at the caller ID to see who was screwing up her peaceful morning. Her anger quickly cooled, however, when she saw it was Adam.

“Hang on, kid,” she said as she stood up and patted her son on the head before heading back to the cockpit. Hector and Archer got up as well and followed behind her, surprised to see the image of General Malkovich appear on a holoscreen over the dash.

“Good afternoon, Lady,” the General said in his calm, even tone. He was fully dressed in his decorate General’s coat and hat, but he appeared to be in his home office. Hector wondered why Adam addressed Samus the way he did but figured that was a question for another time.

“Good afternoon, Adam,” Samus replied, noting his formal attire. “What are you all dressed up for?”

“Well, that’s actually what I called you about.” He glanced over to Hector in the background but did not say anything. “I’ve been called out on a mission. I shouldn’t be gone long, but I wanted to let you know.”

Samus raised her eyebrows. “That’s weird. You don’t usually get called into the field anymore. What kind of mission?”

“That’s classified. I can only tell you I’ll be leading a Special Ops team in hostile territory.” He gave her a look that suggested he shared her sentiments but pretended he didn’t. “The order came from the Secretary of Defense himself. I verified with him after speaking to General Harper. I’ll be heading out at 19:00 tonight.”

“Adam,” Samus scolded, giving him a reproachful glare and looking more like a mother than Hector had ever seen her look, “you’re fifty years old, and you have a bad back. The Secretary is insane if he thinks you should be leading a mission in hostile territory!”

“Lady,” Adam returned her glare, although his was colder, “need I remind you that I am a General? I’ve been in the Army thirty-two years. I’m not about to ignore a direct order from the government.”

“Exactly,” the mercenary rebutted, not phased by his glare. “You’re a General. You’ve been in the service thirty-two years. That’s a long time. You’re not a spring chicken anymore, and the war’s over. There are plenty of other people the Federation could send!”

“Samus,” he replied, his voice dropping to nearly a whisper. “I can’t ignore a direct order. We don’t all have the luxury of being independent contractors. It doesn’t sound right to me either, which is why I confirmed that the orders had come from the Secretary of Defense himself. But I apparently have knowledge within a certain relevant field and…” He sighed. “Lady, I’ll be back.”

Worry showed clearly on Samus’s face as she looked back at her friend on the holoscreen. Something about this mission didn’t sit right with her. She knew Adam was extremely experienced and knowledgeable, but if he was leading a Special Ops team, it meant he would be going into some extremely dangerous areas. If he were accompanying them and providing support, she could understand, but he didn’t lead Special Ops teams anymore. He directed large platoons and generally worked on the sidelines or behind a desk these days. “I don’t like,” she said with disdain.

“Neither do Marza and the girls.” He looked sad as he thought about his family. “We had such a nice weekend together. We were planning to spend more time together in the coming weeks once the girls were done with school...”

“Maybe you’ll make it back by then.” Samus decided not to rub any more salt into the wound. She could see he was just as upset by the strange order as she was. “Just… be careful, all right? Don’t do anything reckless!”

Adam grinned. “I’ll just ask myself ‘What would Samus Aran do?’ and then do the opposite. Any objections to that, Lady?”

“No, Sir!” Samus said with a smirk. “That seems like an intelligent and safe course of action.” Then her face fell again. “But seriously, Adam, be careful. I know there are inherent hazards in what we do, but I can’t imagine what it would do to—” She stopped herself. There was nothing she could say that had not already crossed his mind. The General had been on hundreds of assignments over the years. He had been in the Army since before Samus was old enough to walk. He knew the dangers and the effects it could have on his family.

“I promise you, Lady,” he said once more, trying to ease his long-time friend’s anxiety. “I promise I will be careful. Besides, don’t you have a mission from Keaton you need to focus on?”

The bounty hunter nodded, her thoughts shifting back to LV-426 and her assignment. “Yes, but I have a bit of downtime before that one. If you see Jack, though, tell him I’ll have Hector home in a few days. I need to steal a little bit of time with my son while I still can.”

Adam smiled, looking between the mercenary and her child. “All right. Sounds reasonable.”

“I’ll talk to you later, Adam.” Samus reached to turn off the holoscreen.

“Good-bye, Lady,” the image of the General said before it faded out.


	19. Choice

 

As nice as it was to have her son on her ship with her, Samus had to admit that the tiny living space was getting even more cramped than usual. The addition of the giant wolfy dog did not help the matter. She truly loved her son and was glad for his visit, but though she loathed admitting it, a part of her would be very happy once she dropped him off at his father’s house.

It had been two days since she had spoken to Adam, and she had not heard anything out of him in that time. A part of her worried, of course, but a part of her always worried about the General when he was in battle, particularly now that he was getting up there in years. The other part of her simply accepted that he had to do what he had to do. They were warriors, and these were their lives. That didn’t mean she had to like it, however, and something about it still did not sit right with her. She wondered if his mission had anything to do with her upcoming battle on LV-426, but if he had been assigned to go there, wouldn’t he have been able to tell her? She had thought about contacting Keaton and demanding more information, but that seemed pointless. He may have been paying her very well lately, but he would not give her classified military secrets just because she asked for them.

The bounty hunter leaned back in her pilot’s chair once more as she stared out into space. As usual, she had a cup of coffee in her hands, but instead of casual clothes, she wore her navy blue flight suit once more with her hair in a high ponytail. She had already set the ship on a course toward Earth, although she was not jumping to hyperspace quite yet. It made her sad to know her visit with her son was coming to an end, but she knew it had to. She needed some time to herself before her next mission, and Jack was getting antsy about the amount of school the boy had been missing.

Samus sighed and sipped her coffee. The fact that he was missing school had never even crossed her mind. She had never personally been to school, save for a few night classes after she got out of the Army so she could get some kind of high school equivalent degree. There had not been any other children amongst the Chozo on Zebes. They had lost the ability to reproduce long ago. Hundreds of years ago, a plague had supposedly wiped out the females of their species, so by the time Samus came around, she was both the only child and the only female. Not that her sex had ever really mattered. Chozo lacked the same sexual dimorphism humans displayed, and the social construct of gender had never played a big role in their society. It had been a big shock to her when she realized it was such a big deal to humans and what an anomaly she was when so many were shocked to learn there was a woman under her armor.

No, her sex had never mattered to her. Until the day it did. That day over fifteen years ago when she had finally decided to go see a doctor after being sick for four months. Though she had never been sick a day in her life before that, the last thing she had expected to find out was that she was pregnant. Not only pregnant, but nearly halfway to term at that. It had never even occurred to her that she was capable of becoming pregnant. She had simply assumed the Chozo had sterilized her when they made all of the other modifications. They had done everything in their power to create the perfect human bioweapon, including cracking open her skull to install the electrodes in her brain that allowed her to interface with the powersuit. It had never made sense to her why they had left in such an obvious flaw.

That was not to say she really considered her son to be a flaw. Not anymore anyway. She loved him more than she had ever deemed herself capable of loving, and it put her at a peaceful ease knowing her was in the living space, just through the hatch behind her, watching the holoscreen and sitting on the couch beside Archer.

But fifteen years ago, she had felt very differently. Finding out she was pregnant had been one of the darker days in her life. Perhaps the darkest day that did not involve anyone dying. At eighteen, with no family, a failing Army career, and the ever-present threat of being sent back to prison, she had been terrified and certain that what little bit of a life she had been able to build for herself was over. Jack had not been the only man she had ever been with, but she was glad he was the one who ended up being her son’s father. When she told him what had happened, he had not hesitated in wanting a part in their son’s life. And when she told him she could not be a part of their lives, he gladly took full custody, no questions asked. And he had provided the boy with a loving, stable home for fifteen years.

As for her, the years between then and now had been difficult, but her whole life had been difficult. Adam had helped her get discharged from the Army, and while it was not a dishonorable discharge, she knew she had not left them on good terms and would never be welcomed back. Still, she had not been forced back to prison either, so she was free to pursue whatever work she could get. At that time, working meant chasing low life criminals for small bounties and scraping by month-by-month trying to take care of herself and send out child support payments. And then one day, she just started getting mercenary jobs, and things got easier financially. And money stopped being an issue altogether after her first mission to Zebes.

Samus stood up and stretched, setting her now-empty coffee mug to the side. It was nice taking a few minutes to herself, but she only had about twelve hours left before the ship would get to Earth, and she wanted to spend as much of that time with Hector as possible. Opening the hatch, she stepped into the living quarters and stared for a moment at the boy and the dog relaxing on the couch together. Hector looked up when he saw his mother enter the room, and Samus leaned against the wall and smirked.

“How are you two doing?” she asked.

“Pretty good,” Hector replied, scratching the dog’s massive head. “Watching the new Black Widow movie.”

“How is it?” Samus had casually enjoyed super hero movies in the past. In some ways she could relate to them better than other movies, although she thought they definitely oversimplified some ethical dilemmas.

“It’s pretty good. I’m glad they finally decided to make one.”

The bounty hunter smiled as she scooted the dog over and took a seat next to her son. The three of them did not really fit very well on the tiny couch or in the tiny room, but they made it work. Samus was not familiar with the movie, but there was an attractive red-headed spy wearing a black leather jumpsuit and a lot of explosions, so she figured she could get into it.

“Samus?” Hector asked suddenly after they had been watching the movie for a while.

“Yes?”

“When your mission is over… do you think you could come back and visit us soon? It’s been pretty cool spending time with you.”

The mercenary smiled. It was a bittersweet question. “As soon as I am able to, I’ll come visit. I just can’t promise when that will be.”

“Yeah… about that.” The boy seemed nervous, like he was not sure how to phrase what he was about to say next. “Do you think you would ever… you know, consider living on Earth? Maybe buy a house and put paint on the walls?”

“Heh…” Samus was not sure how to answer that. It was something she had thrown around in her head a few times since meeting her surviving biological family members on Earth. “I had a house once. I sold it after a while because I never spent time there. I have an apartment now… somewhere.” She shrugged. “I live on my ship.”

“But you could have a house and live there part time. Or I could come visit you in space more often.” He shuddered at the thought of trying to fly on a commercial spacecraft again though. That had been a nightmare.

“I suppose I could do that,” she mused aloud. “I can’t say anything for certain until I think through the logistics though.”

Hector raised his eyebrows. “That sounds more like something General Malkovich would say.”

Samus laughed, throwing back her head and laughing wholeheartedly. She supposed that really did sound more like something the General would have said. She was about to retort, but she was interrupted by the sudden ringing of her phone. Sitting up straight, she looked to her watch for the caller ID, hoping to see it was from Adam. However, the watch showed that the call was coming directly from Chairman Keaton. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment.

“I need to take this,” she said to her son, fiddling with her earpiece and heading back into the cockpit. In her haste, she forgot to close the hatch behind her. The holoscreen flickered to life and the image of the little green Alien materialized before her. She stood facing it, not bothering to get into the pilot’s chair this time. “Samus here.”

“Samus,” Keaton said, looking more irritable and stressed out than usual. “There’s a problem.”

The bounty hunter’s heart sped up at the Chairman’s words. He usually only called her if there were problems, but he was never usually so blunt about them. “What kind of problem, Sir?”

“Did you know General Malkovich was going on a mission to LV-426?” He stared her down, an uncharacteristic rage in his beady little eyes.

“I knew he was going on a mission,” Samus replied slowly, trying to keep her cool. She hated being spoken to like she was a child who had gotten in trouble. “I didn’t know it was to LV-426.”

“Well it was,” he said, more quietly, relaxing his posture once he was reasonably certain Samus had not known where the General’s mission was.

“Okay,” she said, not certain what he was expecting from her.

“Samus, there was an explosion onboard the vessel once the General and the Special Ops team entered the planet’s atmosphere.” He stared Samus down hard as she felt her heart sinking. “We’ve lost contact with them.”

Samus froze, cold dread filling her veins as she felt bile coming up in her throat. It was as though someone had put her chest in a vice, and she found it suddenly difficult to breathe as she stared back at the Chairman in shocked horror.

“They may still be alive,” he said after a moment when he realized the mercenary had become unresponsive. “It’s too early to tell, but there is a good chance at least some of them survived the explosion and the crash. Look sharp, Aran, because I cannot have you breaking down now! We don’t have a lot of time but—” The green Alien stopped short as he saw Hector and Archer walk into the room. For a few seconds, he and the boy locked eyes, both staring in disbelief. “You still have your spawn on your ship?” He turned his gaze back to Samus, who seemed to be regaining her composure.

“I’m taking him back to his father’s house as we speak,” she replied, her voice deeper and quieter than usual, though her eyes were wild and her breathing was fast.

“You don’t have time for that.” The Alien was not trying to be cruel but he also knew the situation warranted immediate action. “If the General and the others are to have any chance at survival, I need you to set your course to LV-426 immediately.”

Samus just stared blankly at the screen, dozens of scenarios running through her head, each one of them ending badly. She’s been here before, on the receiving end of this sort of news, and the images of the bodies and the carnage she had seen in the footage of LV-426 came flooding back. Except this time, she saw her son and the closest thing she had ever had to a brother laying amongst the dead. Finally, the rage welling up within her became too much to surpress, and something in her snapped. “How the fuck could you send Adam on a mission like that?! The man is fifty years old, Keaton! Hasn’t he given enough to the Federation over the years? You go and send him to a dangerous planet with some extremely dangerous unknown fucking xenomorphs?! Why didn’t you just send me instead?”

Keaton stared blankly at her for a moment. “Are you quite done, Aran?” There was annoyance in his tone, but a look almost of understanding on his wrinkly green face. “That’s the problem. I didn’t send General Malkovich. I sent Colonel Nelson and his troops, and I was told it would be Nelson leading the expedition. As far as I knew until an hour ago, Malkovich was still on Earth. Something is very wrong, Aran. Someone planted a bomb on that ship and sent the General in the Colonel’s place, and somehow all this happened right under my nose. I can’t risk sending any troops in. The military is compromised. I need an independent contractor, and you are, unfortunately, the only one I trust.”

Samus stood in shock, staring up at the image of the Chairman, a sudden helplessness filling the spot where her rage had been only moments before. “My son is on this ship…”

“Then I hope you’ve taught the boy how to shoot,” the Chairman snapped. “There lives at risk, Aran. You know how that goes. If you try to take that boy home, every man and woman on that squad will end up dead. You need to go to LV-426, stat!” With that, the screen flickered off, leaving Samus standing, still horror-struck in the middle of her cockpit.

The bounty hunter gripped the back of the pilot’s chair for support as she steadied her breathing. If she took her son to safety, her best friend and the troops serving with him would die. If she rescued the troops, she was putting her son’s life in danger. And there was the problem of the mole… how deep did the corruption in the Federation go, and should she even trust Keaton at this point? Adam had told her the orders came to him directly from General Harper and Secretary Green. If they were somehow trying to stage a coup… she couldn’t think about that. Federation politics were not her priority at the moment.

Keaton was right about one thing; lives were at stake. And now she had a decision to make. She turned and looked back at Hector, and the confusion and horror on the boy’s face mirrored her own. Slowly, wordlessly, she took her seat in the pilot’s chair. The impossible choice lay out before her, but she knew what she ultimately had to do.

Without hesitance, she made her choice and entered the coordinates.


End file.
